Chronicles of Samhain: Full Moon Rising
by Kuranzyan Blightwalker
Summary: Both Sirius and Hagrid were too late that uneventful Halloween night. Taken away from the ruins of his home, turned into a Hybrid, tutored and raised by Lucian, Harry Potter seeks to pave his own path to walk in life, guided by the memories in his blood.
1. Calling a favour with unforeseen results

I do not own anything related to Harry Potter nor any of the Underworld movies.

* * *

A man with the name Lucian was making his way through the vast forest known to lie only a few miles to the west of the town called Godric's Hollow. His tattered style of clothing and his almost predatory way of moving through the underbrush belied his outwardly weak constitution, but the truth was more than simply different. In fact, this man was one of the strongest and most infamous sufferers, or in the eyes of some less prejudiced individuals gifted with an affliction commonly known as Lycanthropy. The fact that he had lived for several centuries only gave him more credit but not entirely deserved, as it was a rare genetic strain that had allowed him to live this long, and even gave him the passive ability to somewhat retain his human mind during his transformations, and even though he couldn't completely suppress the typical werewolf rage and instincts, he could change between his forms willingly, even during the nights with a full moon. Normally only the vampires were able to reach such an age, but ever since Nicolas Flamel and his wife managed to create the Philosopher's Stone he wasn't the only non-vampire super centenarian among the living. His rather unique circumstances had more or less pressured him into maintaining a somewhat mutual agreement between him and some of the various vampire clans or _covens_, as they preferred to call their social structures.

As for the reason he was heading for Godric's Hollow, it had been a rather funny thing, really. The Matron of the coven of the Raven had approached him in private with a rather contemplative expression on her face when he had visited their primary safe house in the United Kingdom, even though she had tried to hide it from him. She had explained that because of _certain_ unaddressed issues with a powerful Dark Wizard she was forced to betray the agreement with said wizard, and in fear of repercussions for her actions she was now looking for allies that could prevent the total annihilation of the British branch of the Ebon Raven. Lucian understood her desperate state of mind. Dark Wizards were 'whimsical' in general, and the one that called him the Heir of Slytherin along with some other titles was definitely ruling them all. Add the fact that they more than likely acted based on their whims, and their actions most likely involved a ton of dead and in some cases mutilated bodies, or excruciating torture. Vampire or not, Amelia was quick to realize that pride and racial superiority only couldn't do much to help her. She didn't have many options left.

Lucian finally managed to find his way through the dense forest and let out a sigh of relief. He couldn't see the house he was supposed to look for, and that meant one thing. It was still intact, and that meant the family that lived there was still alive as well. '_Good. Wouldn't be good if the place had already been turned into a pile of rubble, now would it? The young cub (1) is instrumental to the solution of Amelia's problem child, and it ain't going to help if he's already dead,_' he mused while he made his way over to the Potter residence as per the directions he had been given.

He was surprised to find Amelia waiting for him when he reached the place. Something told him that there was trouble on the horizon, and his suspicions were confirmed when she told him what she had in mind for the young Potter kid. '_That… damned bat! Turning an innocent child into a weapon designed to fight and kill one of the most powerful Dark Wizards in history is one thing, but to force not only vampirism upon him, but to add lycanthropy on top of that is outright insane! Has she gone mad because of the pressure? It would destroy him!_'

Lucian couldn't bring himself to turn around and leave, because the next thing he knew she was practically begging him to help her. Partly so because of their long history together (2) and partly because of the fact that vampires never went down on their knees for someone other than their own kin. He agreed, but only on the condition that he was allowed to take the boy with him in order to train him to control his inner beast and his transformations. She reluctantly agreed when he pointed out that the boy would most likely physically become something closer to a werewolf despite the double 'infection' they would give him.

Having nothing to say to each other for now, Amelia began looking for any faults in the magical defences of the Potter residence. Shortly after she'd found them, she motioned to Lucian that he were to do exactly as he was told to avoid waking up the whole family. He did so, and roughly ten minutes later they were standing in the bedroom of the young Harry Potter on the first floor of the Potter mansion, deciding despite the situation they were in, through a rather humorous series of rock-paper-scissors(3) who would give their own form of 'curse' to the young child first. Lucian won, much to his own glee and the poorly hidden disdain of Amelia.

"Here goes nothing… oh and I hope for your sake that this double 'curse' won't be the cause of any sort of problems for the kid. He's going to have it tough enough in the next fifteen to twenty years or so from now on. Cheers kiddo, you're going to be quite the party animal!" He muttered as he protectively took Harry out of his crib and gave him a soft bite on the infant's left shoulder, before silently handing him over to Amelia with the tenderness one would expect of a father holding his newborn son. She accepted him while raising an eyebrow at the same time, almost as if she couldn't comprehend what he did. Lucian shrugged at her curious expression, having no desire to explain that one to her. Besides, wasn't she the one that begged him to see this through only fifteen minutes ago?

After she had bitten the infant in the same spot he did, she gave him back to his 'partner in crime' with a neutral and emotionless mask on her face, giving Lucian her typical cold and distant farewell as she turned for the door, only to let out a gasp of complete surprise when she sensed someone, having no doubts about the identity of the newcomer whatsoever, breaking through the wards surrounding the Potter residence with apparent impunity. She hissed, annoyed that she was now forced to hide in the shadows, and the fact that her former 'employer' was now making his way to the front door without any form of haste or impatience. Good for him, for her and for Lucian, who had just finished tucking young Harry back in his crib and had been watching the two bite marks disappear almost completely, as the only reminder of this evening's events would be the lightning-shaped scar on his forehead, and a small scar consisting of four white dots of varying size in a formation that in about ten years time would leave very little doubts about their origins, but many questions about the fact that the boy-who-lived, well, lived.

* * *

A/N: I've been brooding about this concept for a while now, and I'm pretty sure I've just made the first and only (for now) Harry Potter fanfic with Underworld influences.

(1) I'm not really going to have to explain this one now that you've read the chapter, do I? (insert feral grin here)

(2) I always thought of Amelia (who we've seen surprisingly little during the three Underworld movies) was more level-headed than both Marcus and Viktor when it came to an alliance with the Lycans. Yes, I'm well aware that Viktor had 'bred' them as slaves and daytime guards only to reject them in the end and plotted a massive lycan genocide, and that Marcus freed his brother for the sake of freedom, but come on, those are not really the best examples, aren't they?

(3) You have to admit, it's damn funny to picture both Lucian and Amelia doing such a thing, no? *chuckle*

And for your information, both Amelia and Lucian made it out of the collapsing house. The rest pretty much happened according to canon, with the exception being that it was Lucian who took infant Harry out of the rubble and he was long gone before Hagrid went on his way there to pick Harry up on Sirius' motorbike. Serves Dumbledore completely right for planning to put him with the Dursleys, the manipulating old prat. 'For the greater good', my ass. If I were Minerva McGonagall way back in the first chapter of Book 1 I'd have hexed Dumbledore all the way into next year and taken the one year old kid to your own home before leaving him with someone I could TRUST. She BLOODY told him what she'd WITNESSED the ENTIRE day as she hang out in the STREET! If you'd manage to stay sane after whole day of a whining Dudders, Grumpy Vernon and Horsey Petunia Dursley, I'd get the young orphan a place to stay in bloody CHINA or JAPAN for christ's sake. This is for Dumbledore: As Bill Nighy more than appropriately said in his role as Viktor in Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, "Have you lost your mind?"  
(Accent included for the heck of it) I love it when he said it like he did. The guy is awesome!


	2. Hell hath no fury like a shopping spree

I do not own Harry Potter, nor do I own Underworld.

* * *

Ten years had passed since the fateful night in which Harry Potter was abducted from the ruins that were once his home. Feeling that it was sort of his responsibility that the boy would grow up into a fine young man who would be able to handle anything life could throw at him, Lucian had travelled all over Europe to educate the child in all sorts of things, ranging from proper manners during dinner to the easiest way for a Lycan to recognise and deal swiftly with any and all potential threats.

Harry had been a quick learner, and he had been all too willing to learn to boot. The rate at which he progressed had sent cold shivers up the centuries older lycan's back. Add the fact that the growing child's physical abilities were far more advanced shortly after his siring than Lucian's fully developed abilities at their peak, and seeing that the kid himself was still developing did little to ease his worries. Lucian had begun to grow fearful of the young child, and he considered himself extremely lucky that he was on the kid's good side. He had shuddered at the thought of what would happen to those who were stupid or ignorant enough to earn the teenager's ire.

A few days later, at Harry's eleventh birthday, something strange happened. An owl flew over, dropped a piece of parchment shaped like a letter and flew away like it didn't have a care in the world about its unnatural behaviour. Lucian was well aware of what that meant, and he silently berated himself for being such a fool. They had tracked the boy down without any hints of trouble in doing so. Even worse was the fact that they could've personally come and deal with the two of them, but hadn't. It put him on edge, and while it eased his mind a little bit when the thought crossed his mind that they didn't because they probably thought the boy was safe, Lucian couldn't shake off the nagging feeling that something about all this was completely off, he just couldn't put his finger on it.

Harry sensed that something about all this gave his teacher a slight discomfort, so he refrained from asking what the problem was. To his surprise however, Lucian didn't appear to share his thoughts on the matter. "Kiddo," he began, Harry twitched at the nickname. "It seems some of your old man and woman's sort of people have decided to give you lessons about magic." Harry frowned at this bit of news. "But pops, I already know everything I could learn about magic, don't I? I mean, I can't cast spells and stuff, but…" Lucian scoffed, stopping him from his train of thought before he would embarrass himself any further. "Honestly kiddo, I thought you were smarter than that. You just provided yourself with the answer."

Harry looked at his adoptive father with eyes the size of dinner plates, and did the only thing that came to his mind; dumbly nodding. Lucian watched his mouth fall open and had to suppress himself from snickering at the young Hybrid. "Close your mouth. It doesn't suit you, not when your fangs aren't showing." Harry's jaw flew back to its upper half and grinded his teeth in the process, not that it would've damaged them in any way. Harry didn't even lose his baby teeth. He never wondered why, mostly because it didn't interest him anyway. To him, teeth were simply that, teeth.

His attention was drawn back to his 'father' when he continued where he left off. "I can't force you to go to… what was that school's name again?" He briefly glanced at the parchment. "Hogwarts. I'm not going to tell you what to decide. However, if you do plan on going there, you will have to continue honing your instincts and keep your inner beast on a tight leash, because I'm not going to be there and I lost the ability to keep you in check years ago, so frankly I do not give a rat's ass about what you are going to choose. Besides, if I may say so, going there will definitely broaden your horizon for a bit, you know, experience some new things. Besides, it isn't healthy for a kid like you to be stuck with a several centuries old fart like me!" Lucian howled out in laughter after saying that. Not that he paid any mind to his dignity or loss thereof; as he had spent centuries walking the earth, and he figured that it wouldn't kill to laugh a bit about oneself in any case.

Harry didn't even need to think about it; he wanted to go so bad that it tore him up inside, since it would be a very long time before he would see Lucian again. His guardian noticed his eyes, mixed with excitement, wonder, guilt and sadness. "Kiddo, don't you go worrying about me alright? I'll be fine. Besides, like I just said to you, a little contact between you and some kids of your age would do miracles for you. Lately you've just been sitting about on your ass doing nothing but gaze off into the distance. Longing for something, I don't know what. Just go to that Hogwarts place, enjoy yourself a bit and make friends of your own age. One thing I really want you to burn into your curious little mind, is that you avoid showing off your power, and I mean that. You know why. Both me and you, we're not human and we don't have to act like them, but the place where you are going you'll have to swallow that inconvenient obstacle for as long as you have to be there. No, I'm serious; don't look at me like that. You know how humans think of us werewolves, and there's no telling what they're going to do to you if they find out you're different from the rest of the rest. The ones you'll have to be especially aware of are the ones that have the delusion that 'pure' blood is supreme to 'mixed' stuck in their heads. For some reason those wizards think that they are better than everyone and everything else, including 'our' kind. You don't have to avoid them, just be on your guard with that sort of lunatics, alright?"

Harry couldn't understand why people would think themselves higher than they truly were. In the wild, everything was sort of monitored by the 'survival of the fittest' idea. In human society the same idea is present, but there were other factors responsible for one's welfare as well. But in Wizard society, everything was thrown off its natural order. Humans were the most numerous, but not most versatile of the magical races, and they were divided by vague distinctions; Pureblood, Half-blood and a funny word called 'Muggle-born'. The first two were self-explanatory. The last group was comprised of people of whom both parents were non-magical in nature, but they had magical abilities for some reason. He couldn't make any sense of the way the purebloods thought that they were better than other people solely for their blood status.

Lucian shook him out of his reverie by chucking the Hogwarts letter at him. It struck his forehead with a blunt 'thwack', causing Harry to jump up in fright. Lucian snickered at the scene. "Kiddo, I think you better read what's in the letter, because I'm positive that it'll tell you what you have to do in preparation for Hogwarts, like buying school books, among other things."

* * *

  
A few days later Harry found himself in front of a shady looking pub of some kind. As his gaze fluttered through the street, he barely managed to reign in a snort as he took in the fact that nobody seemed to notice the building that was awfully put off compared to the rest of the street. '_The Leaky Cauldron, eh? Fitting, I suppose. It looks like a pigsty from the outside.'_  
He leapt up the front porch, opened the door, walked through and allowed it to fall in the lock in one fluid action. The room, or rather its occupants went silent as he walked over to the counter. Harry could **feel** the eyes of those present looking at him, unnerving him as he went. He had to bite back a rude remark for it would place too much attention on his person, and that was the last thing he needed. He knew from a few of the conversations he had with Lucian regarding his deceased parents that surviving the deadliest curse **and **vanquishing the most powerful Dark Wizard of all time in less than a second, while being a helpless infant at the same time, had made him and the lightning-bolt shaped scar on his forehead probably the most famous person in the magical world, putting that oh-so-infamous Dark Wizard that had tried to kill him on second place.

Inwardly, he rolled his eye and snorted at the stupidity of things. They worshipped a child with no form of control over his powers, and hailed him as the hero who defeated the evil Dark Lord. An unstable mountain that had been left in such a state far too long, and in the end it had unleashed an avalanche that was too large and destructive to stop, only for it to find some temporary halt in a deep and broad fissure somewhere on the mountainside itself.

Reaching over the counter in order to address the ward of the place, Harry found himself face to face with a balding man who appeared to be in his late sixties. "Excuse me… Could you tell me where I might find the entrance to Diagon Alley?" For the sake of appearances Harry put an irritated scowl on his face before continuing. "You see, I happen to be raised by non-magical people and while I know of this place and Diagon Alley, it's a bit of a mystery of how the two correlate. The letter from Hogwarts didn't exactly disclose anything detailed that would have been of use…"

The ward's facial expression changed from hopeful to a frown to an annoyed and bored one. It was like he didn't like the type of people Harry was pretending to be one of, or perhaps it was something more along the thought of 'oh hell no, not another one of those kids…'

After the guy led him out the back door and poked a random brick in the wall that was directly opposite the doorway the two had just walked through, with a wooden thing that Harry presumed to be a wand. He made it a mental priority to get his wand as soon as possible. A loud, grinding noise shook him out of his musing. His jaw went slack at the sight of the whole brick wall shifting into something that resembled a gateway of sorts. His surprise grew even more as he took note of the bustling activity on the other side of the newly formed gateway. With an excited smirk forming on his face he stepped through the former brick wall and watched with slight interest as it shifted back into its former, inconspicuous state.

Harry let his gaze travel randomly over the shopping district in the hope of finding the equivalent of a bank of the magical world. He would make quite a few purchases today, and he quickly realized that he'd need money for that, and the little he had wouldn't exactly cut it. Some ten to fifteen minutes later he found himself standing in front of a massive building that was made of the purest white of marble. Silently he read the plaque that was embedded into the stone above the large doors. '_Gringott's, Banking and Investment Enterprises. Sounds like something only the Goblins could come up with._'

He rushed up the stairs that led up to the large halls of one of the only two places with the best security the magic side of London could offer. Skidding to a halt Harry reminded himself he had no experience in dealing with the finer procedures of wizard finances. Just as he was looking around for someone who could help him out of his predicament, he felt a hand come down on his shoulder, while an amused voice rang out. "Could I be of assistance, Mr Potter?"

Harry flinched. Not even Lucian had succeeded in sneaking up on him during the past ten years, not a single time, and here was someone that had pulled off that what his 'father' had never managed to do. In his surprise and his shock he did something he immediately berated himself for: he had slipped into a partial transformation of his hybrid form. He involuntarily bared his teeth, solely because of the fact his canines had elongated to unnerving proportions. His green eyes flashed a brief crimson before settling down on a cold, glimmering black. His skin slowly took on a gray tone and his fingernails sharpened into claws and took on a slightly darker shade of gray.

The goblin closest to the two had looked up from his work and involuntarily shivered in fright. He had witnessed the atrocities of the last Wizard-Goblin war, participated even, and none of those had resulted in any sort of psychological scars. The thing, for a lack of a name putting it in the nameless category for now, was giving him extremely bad vibes. Not even an eight-hundred years or so old basilisk would put this petrifying fear into him. Raw power and a massive primal presence were rolling off of the 'thing' in waves. He swallowed in resignation, fully prepared to die… Only to stare at the spot where that 'thing' had been standing only a few seconds ago. Bewildered, he searched for the 'monster' that had almost killed him without lifting even a finger in his direction, only to go back to his work after wasting precious seconds. His hands didn't stop quivering though, and he was forced to leave his paperwork unfinished until his hands stopped shaking uncontrollably.

Meanwhile, Harry was staring at the woman in front of him. She looked like she was in her late thirties, even though her presence held something far more regal and older in it. A slight smile crept on her face and her eyes briefly flashed in amusement at his feral scowl. "Easy there, Harry-boy," she whispered, he was the only one able to hear her voice now. "You might find yourself hunted, killed and studied for the secrets that you harbour behind that young look of yours." She continued whispering with a melodious chime in her voice. Harry responded with a swiping motion at her right shoulder, failing to hit her as she dodged the attempt.

"Ease up. I'm not here to fight nor harm you in any way. I merely wish to talk about you and your identity in the magical world," she whispered, her voice now solemn and serious. Harry stopped trying to hit her, much to her relief even if she didn't show it. "I do hope Lucian has taught you enough about your wolf side, and I figure that it is now my turn to teach you about your vampire heritage."

Harry simply shrugged. "I have been told quite a lot of things about vampires, courtesy of Lucian. What he didn't or couldn't tell me I found out or pieced together on my own. I sincerely doubt that you have the ability to tell me anything I don't know yet. So I have to bid you adieu." Harry turned away from her, preparing to find a goblin who could answer some of the questions that were on his mind. "Oh, and I wasn't even trying." He called out over his shoulder. "Mangy sack of fleas." She muttered under her breath, only to run as if hell was hot on her tail when Harry stopped dead in his stride after hearing her comment.

Harry shook his head in order to clear his thoughts. "Old bat," he muttered in response to her verbal jab, and smirked. '_I doubt she will ever change.'_ His face fell back in a scowl as he recalled his slight predicament, only to bump right into a large and solid pillar of… fur?

He sniffed the air. '_That's fur alright. But who is…?_' His prayer directed at something in the sky was answered by a snicker from the lowest reaches of the abyss. "'Arry, would tha' be ye? It be too good 'te finally be able te see ya, ye li'l prankster! Disappearin' on te' lot of us, fer ten 'ole years. Yer old' man would 'a been proud o' ye. Dunno 'ow ya pull' tha' one, ye 'iding spo' ought'ta been good. Ah ye, forgot te' ask ye, bu' why did ye not live by 'em Dursleys? 'Ey be dem only family ye ha' left. Muggles o' course, but still…"

"Excuse me, who are you?" Those were the only words that Harry could come up with at the moment. He stared at the massive man in front of him, who blinked after a few seconds. Harry could tell he was trying to avoid answering the question for some reason. "Sorry, wrong question. I meant to ask; 'how did you find out who I am?'" Harry inquired, curious on how the gigantic man would answer that one. "Blimey 'Arry, don' ye know? Ye be te' spittin' image o' yer ol' man! 'hem, wi' out dem eyes, o' course, 'ose be yer mum's!"

Harry couldn't make much sense of the man's heavily accented English, but he got the gist of it. The large man didn't stop talking though. "Dumbledore's been worryin' his legs off 'isself, an' 'e kept thinkin' bout you bein' taken out o' te' picture, an' some Dea' eater te' one tha' did te' number on ye. 'E be glad ta 'ear ye be safe an' sound!"

"Who is Dumbledore?" Harry couldn't stop himself from asking the moment the large stranger paused to take a breath. "Te' greatest wizard o' all times and an even greater man! Dumbledore, 'e be te' 'Eadmaster of 'Ogwarts!" The stranger seemed mollified by the obvious lack of knowledge Harry displayed, but Harry interrupted the large man before he would ramble more and more. "Sir, I was wondering if you could help me with some monetary problems. I don't have nearly enough to buy my school supplies for this year." The stranger chuckled at that. "Call me 'Agrid, 'Arry, sir makes me feel ol'. Ye be right though, ye need ta' find out ye 'ave money, and 'ow much o' it. Ye be gobsmacked 'en ye see 'at's in yer vault. Yer ol' man and yer mum left ye wi' a lot of gold." Hagrid seemed to be proud of that fact. Harry couldn't make sense of that, so he just went along.

After some standard procedure mumbo-jumbo and some secret dilly-dallying between Hagrid and some rather nervous goblin with the name Griphook, Harry experienced his first ride in a mining cart at breakneck speeds. The vast network of tunnels and caves below the earth was as large as the entirety of London, if not bigger. Once they arrived at Harry's vault, Hagrid handed Harry the key to open the lock on the entrance. Harry was indeed gobsmacked as Hagrid predicted after a brief glance at the wealth in front of him. He almost fainted after Hagrid said that the Potter Family Vault had at least fifteen and at most twenty times the amount in Harry's personal vault. Harry decided to take out a hundred galleons and seventy sickles, while Hagrid insisted that half of that would be more than enough to take care of everything Harry would have to buy today.

Harry skipped along to a vault with the number of 713 on it, expressing no interest in its contents, and he didn't even blink when all that was inside was a tattered package, which was quickly hidden in one of the many pockets of Hagrid's fur coat. Thirty minutes of sitting in a mining cart that ran back to the surface with breakneck speeds, Harry blinked in the harsh sunlight and told Hagrid goodbye. "I will be able to do the rest myself, thanks for the thought, but no thanks, I'll manage." Harry waved the large man's objections off and headed for the wand store he thought he saw somewhere in one of the side alleys.

After a frantic search he found himself in front of his destination. '_Ollivander's. Hmm…_' Stepping inside, all he found was the store in absence of any human presence. '_Probably in the back… I might as well look around in the meantime._' No sooner had he finished that thought or he found himself in the company of an old and mysterious man. After his initial shock had passed and he had snuffed out his annoyance of people sneaking up on him, in particular on this day, he told the man that he was looking for a wand.

* * *

Hours of waving with wooden sticks had resulted in nothing, but Ollivander seemed to grow more and more determined with each unsuccessful article. Harry thought the man was playing mind games with him, but he wasn't certain until the wand maker announced in his typical mystifying voice that the newest wand, 'created only this morning', was the last wand to be tried. "Nine inches, Ebony with a dual core of Dead Man's Blood and Thestral Hair. A volatile mixture, but it can produce incredible magic… Mr Potter, I think we can expect some interesting things from you in the future. The question remains though; will it be for good or for evil…?" Harry didn't quite like the implications of that. '_It's almost as if expects me to become the newest and most powerful Dark Wizard. I'm not planning to usurp the seat of power though. I have no need for raising chaos and causing a war._' Harry had paid for his wand and left the story already, so he failed to hear Ollivander's next comment. "His enemies will rue the day they become the victims of that wand of his… Though I doubt that he needs his wand in order to fight…"

Harry decided to get himself some wizard robes first, and then look for writing utensils and books, followed by potion ingredients and a cauldron, and look for a possible familiar next. The letter from Hogwarts had recommended that students adopt a familiar for undisclosed reasons. Harry figured that he would probably end up with an owl. Toads were slimy and didn't have any useful abilities. Cats were okay, but since they avoided him like the plague and never enjoyed his presence, Harry decided that taking a cat wouldn't do either of them any good. An owl was the only option he had left. Harry had seen a couple of owls flying around during the day and figured that they were generally being used as mail carriers / transporters, like pigeons were sometime during the Middle Ages.

Two hours later and in possession of a brand new set of robes, quills, ink, books, potion ingredients and a brand new cauldron, he made his way towards the noisiest store in the area. Mostly because he recognized the sounds were made by various animals. The volume increased as he came closer. To at least shut out part of the cacophony made by spooked creatures, Harry recalled an earlier conversation with a blonde haired boy, who was acting rather smug and self-important, when Harry had his measurements taken for his school robes.

* * *

Pensieve Mode Initiated.

The doorbell was the only indication someone had just entered the clothing store. Harry couldn't see who they were, but flinched ever so slightly when he heard the voice of someone, a boy of the same age as Harry. The reason Harry had flinched was because the voice was full of poorly hidden contempt and unjustified pride bordering on arrogance. '_Someone's been spoiled during his childhood…_'

Harry almost felt sorry for the pampered kid and soon to be year-mate. Almost. He snapped out of his musings as he heard the brat's voice again, this time with a whiny undertone in it. "you agree with me then? I mean, some people aren't worthy of attending Hogwarts!" "How come? Aren't they just like me and you? Human?" Harry lied slightly; he didn't want the pompous kid to have any clue about his true nature. "No they aren't. They are impure and tainted. They're parasites, nothing else." Harry was deeply disturbed by the eleven year old's comment. He decided to ask the kid's name so he would be able to keep an eye on him and intervene if necessary, when it would get out of hand. It worried Harry that the kid already expressed such blatant prejudices in public. He left the store after paying for his new robes and pushed the matter with the young Draco Malfoy to the back of his mind.

Pensieve Mode Terminated.

* * *

Harry entered the animal store and as soon as he did the unexpected happened. Every animal that had contributed to the increasing cacophony was suddenly silenced, merely because of his presence. The few clients and store personnel were only able to stutter a few unintelligible words. Harry paid no attention to the flabbergasted humans present, and paid even less attention to the numerous animals that were shivering, hiding or displaying other signs of utter terror. Only three creatures caught his interest. A sleeping armadillo-like reptile creature, a rather vicious and no doubt highly venomous snake that was watching Harry's every move, hissing words every so often… '_Wait, words? Words indeed._' It was hissing something about his fellow snakes being cowards. The serpent acted a lot like the young Malfoy. Harry ignored it in favour of the last creature either foolish enough not to know fear, or powerful or cunning enough to survive Harry in a fight. Strangely enough it was an owl, not a variant of reptile.

The owl was staring at him. Taking the white of her feathers into account, Harry surmised that it was a snow owl. Her yellow eyes gazed into Harry's and he was almost immediately sold when the owl let out an appreciative hoot. Apparently the bird had found him worthy enough to be her owner and master. Harry couldn't help but stare in wonder at the owl's natural beauty.

A soft but firm hoot shook him out of his reverie, and he pulled back the sleeve of his right arm while holding his arm up in a welcoming gesture. She didn't need any further encouragement and landed on his exposed arm right away, carefully closing her talons around his flesh as to avoid inflicting an injury on him. Harry slowly but surely walked towards the counter to pay for his new familiar. The clerk was still looking around in befuddlement, and only responded when Harry cleared his throat loudly.

Harry pointed at his new owl with his unoccupied arm. "I would like to become the new owner of this owl. What does she cost?" Harry had quickly realized that she was female, mostly so because of her behaviour patterns. He paid for his new owl and left the store absent-mindedly because he was thinking of a new name for her. "How about Daelin?" Offended hoot. "What do you think of Serin, then?" Appreciative hoot. "Something to add to that… You mean like a surname? Serin Frostbeak?" Baleful hoot. "I agree, that sounds weird, it's if you can freeze people solid when you peck them. Serin Soulfrost?" Soft hoot. "Wait, you kind of like that one? Slightly different then… Serin Soulice?" Annoyed hoot. "Serin Soulcrys? Soulchrys?" Another annoyed hoot. "I'm thinking Serin Soulkhrys. Nah… Soulsidhe? You okay with that?" She pecked his cheek affectionately and let out a soft hoot. "Okay, your full name is Serin Soulsidhe, Serin for convenience sake. I don't want to keep calling you 'Soulsidhe' every time I have something I need delivered. Fine with that?" Hoot. "Good. Now let's find ourselves a place to stay for the night, it's getting dark." Hoot.

Just when Harry reached the foot of the stairs that led up to Gringott's, he heard a loud explosion coming from the direction of the doors of the wizard bank. The fact that the one responsible was hiding his identity with a completely black shroud didn't surprise Harry in the slightest. "Sorry Serin, seems like I have to take care of something first. Do you mind watching over my stuff until I get back?" Harry pointed at the suitcase he had stored everything he had bought during the day. Popping his knuckles and rolling his neck and shoulders for good measure, he pulled his sweater over his head and threw it aside without second thoughts.

With a feral grin on his face he mangled his body into his full hybrid form, his skin taking on a bluish gray, fingernails turning into sharp and deadly claws. His face twisted into a horrifying visage worthy of comparison to the entity known as the Reaper. On his back, two bone structures came forth, ripping through the skin only to form a second set of limbs, the only vague resemblance that of a praying mantis' clawed arms. Those things were a lame joke compared to the ones brandished by Harry Potter, however.

He bolted forward, closing most of the distance in a series of leaps, softly landing each time he came down. It fell out of the human hearing range. Harry was certain that his sneak attack on the figure shrouded in black had been successful, but his bad luck once again decided to play a cruel joke with him and a flash of green light struck him full in the face.

* * *

A/N:

Yes, the owl is old and ever the lady Hedwig. It's just a different name, deal with it. The owl is the same.

Yes, Harry was hit with the killing curse. No, he's not dead, I'm not that sadistic. I'm worse.

Yes, Harry is going to put Draco in his place somewhere during the first year. No, he's not going to kill or maim him. Not with the intent to kill him, I mean. *cough*

Harry is somewhere between a fully matured dragon and Grawp in raw physical strenght. His body size limits what he can do, though. Look, Grawp was able to pull out some pretty large trees out of the ground with their roots more or less still intact. A dragon may be able to tackle that same tree out of the ground it's rooted in. Harry can do the same with a little luck on his side, but he lacks the sheer size that makes Grawp a giant, so he can't pull entire trees out of the ground with a single hand.

As for Harry's hybrid form, all I did was adding Marcus' wings and those mantis-claws to Michael's form. I'm lazy.


	3. Train rides and new friends

Don't own Harry Potter, Don't own Underworld. If I did, this fanfic would've portrayed both of the actual series.

* * *

  
Hell would freeze over when, no if one would get the foolish idea in their mind that Harry Potter was a happy individual at this very moment. He was far from happy. If one would be able what Harry was looking at they would've fainted from the shock without question. Harry never had experienced that sort of thing until only a couple of hours ago, when he couldn't believe his eyes at the contents of his Gringott's vault.

'_Unreal_,' he thought, looking at the enormous midnight-black avian creature in front of him. "**It is not that strange, youngling**," A low, droning voice reverberated in the air. "**Your fate is not set in stone. Unlike the fates of lesser beings, yours is your own to decide**." Harry was trying to identify the type of bird that was in front of him, and guessed it had to be some sort of crow subspecies, the sheer size not taken into account. "**You must not falter. The twisted aberration that was bound to your soul has been disposed of; the knowledge and abilities it possessed have been transferred to your own mind**."

Harry couldn't make sense of what the gigantic bird was saying. Something about his fate that was his own to decide, and apparently his soul had been invaded by some creature and it had been disposed of through unknown means, most likely that strange, green flash of light that struck his face only some minutes ago. When he realized the bird was still talking, he stopped his train of thought. "**The trials you will face will leave their marks on you, be they on your person… or your mind. I shall watch you, young fledgling, and give you my blessing when you have proven yourself to me**."

The ridiculously large crow blinked only once, before it continued. "**Do not forget. Do not forgive the unworthy. Do not give in to temptation and sin without due cause. Weaknesses of the mind on your part will result in a fate worse than death. Satisfy your hungers. Slake your thirsts. Revere the gifts the wolf and the _leech_ have given you. Remember the price your forebears have paid. Uphold the pride that comes with the name of the Raven…**"

The voice had trailed off, and Harry was back in the world of the living after he blinked, or so he presumed. "_**Young fledgling, you never died.**_" The voice of the raven chuckled, startling the 'Boy-Who-Lived'. Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Harry let his gaze travel freely over the scene in front of him, trying to make any sense of the events that had transpired in the span of only five seconds.

The aspirant Gringott's robber had been impaled by both of Harry's bone claws. The first had found its target in the man's shoulder, unfortunately causing little more than a flesh wound. The second however had penetrated the guy's chest, missing his heart by a few inches. It did take out a good portion of both of his lungs and his ribcage was as good as completely smashed. Harry felt the satisfaction and the rush of adrenaline pass through him as he realized he had killed his foe. His expression quickly turned into a frown of disappointment as he realized the guy had died without any resistance.

"Worthless. Some piece of shit you are," Harry muttered under his breath, nevertheless glad that the streets were empty. After having his bone claws removed from the would-be thief's corpse, he quickly turned back into his human form, and it was not a second too early. A strange, smoky phantom separated itself from the mutilated remains and took off, wailing in a hollow voice as it went. Harry, unable to give the spectre any pause, decided against following it. With a sigh, he slowly made his way back to his suitcase and Serin, picking up his sweater along the way. He didn't bother pulling it back over his head; it was as dirty as a dump, and smelled the part as well. Repressing the urge to gag, Harry stared at 'his' new owl for a second. "Let's go find a place to stay for the night now. I'm feeling tired after all that," he told her quietly, getting uncomfortable lingering around in the empty street any longer.

After making his way back to the Leaky Cauldron, he approached the now rather jittery ward and addressed him, making him flinch. "Excuse me; I would like to know if you have any rooms left unoccupied. I don't have a place to stay for the next few weeks." The ward stared at him incredulously for a moment, but eventually he shove a piece of parchment and a quill over the counter towards Harry. Harry signed it with the false name 'Thomas Anderson', paid the ward for the night and tugged his suitcase up the stairs and to his room. He fell on the bed without bothering to change into nightwear and drifted off in the bliss of sleep.

* * *

A few weeks had gone by, and Harry found himself glaring at the wall that separated track nine and track ten. After checking out the stones by touch and felt his hand slip through some of them, he had a fair idea of what he was supposed to do and drove his trolley through the illusionary barrier with some restraint on his part. As always, it wouldn't do him any good to draw unwanted attention to his person. A grin formed on his face as he took in the chaos mass of parents that were waving their children goodbye. The Hogwarts Express was looming in the background; the smoke that was billowing from the chimney indicated that the engine was running. The excited grin faded from Harry's face as he realized that the train would take off any moment now, and he all but threw his trunk inside the train in a very dramatic theatrical act of haste. Having made sure that Serin was securely and comfortably perched on his shoulder, he 'barely' managed to haul himself on board.

About ten minutes of towing his trunk through the linear path as he sought the quietest and calmest compartment in the train were spent before Harry had found one that had sort of matched his preference. A round-faced and brown haired boy was the only other occupant, sitting by himself, staring out of the window in with bored expression. Harry didn't think twice as he stepped inside and sat down, drawing the boy's attention to him.

After a couple of minutes of staring at each other, the brown-haired boy shrugged and went back to what he did before; staring out of the window with a downcast expression, but once so often he would look at Harry for a few seconds with an unreadable hint of _something_ in his eyes. The 'Boy-Who-Lived' was about to sneer some crude remark to the boy but was taken aback when the target of his annoyance spoke instead. "What's your name? I'm Neville, Neville Longbottom."

Harry could only gaze at the boy opposite of him with a dumb expression on his face. "I, er… Uh, what?" was his intelligent answer. Shaking his head to clear it of his flabbergasted state of mind, he held his hand out in a friendly gesture. "Ah yes, my apologies. My name…" Harry paused for obvious dramatic effect, but in actuality he was trying to come up with an appropriate alias. "I'm afraid it's not my real name, but you can call me Thomas Anderson for now. I'm not going to tell you my true name, as you will probably find out this evening. It's a pain in the ass, people asking questions about me," Harry explained, doing a rather poor job of it in his own eyes. Neville simply shrugged and didn't poke any further at it, instead moving onto another subject.

"Do you have any idea of what House you're going to be sorted into? I myself am hoping to be sorted in Gryffindor, as my whole family's been in that one for as long as I can remember, and with Gran pushing me all the time I reckon she'd kill or disown me if I don't become a Gryff'. Then again, Hufflepuff might be better for me… I'm nothing like the valiant 'heroes' my parents were…" the boy murmured, not realizing that Harry easily picked up his sour expression.

"Houses…?" Harry honestly didn't know what to think of that. "You mean that instead of a castle, we're living in dormitories separated from the main school building or something?" Neville chuckled. "Nah, it's nothing like that. See, the students are separated into four groups, called Houses, based on their character. There's Gryffindor, and like I mentioned earlier, that's where the brave and the valiant go. Then you have Ravenclaw, which is rooted in the typical academic stuff. Wisdom, eagerness to learn, you name it. Next, you've got Slytherin, which is known for their cunning and ambitious mindset, however, it also has a notorious track record of Dark Wizards coming from that house. Trust me; they're a nasty bunch most of the time. Last, there's Hufflepuff, which is basically the leftovers of students that do not fit in with the other houses. It also prides, if you can call it that, itself on hard work and loyalty. Sadly, 'Puffs are a bit… looked down upon. It's nothing like the Slytherins though."

Neville jumped up all of a sudden, and began to frantically look for something, muttering something about toads that always ran away. Harry wrinkled his face in disgust for a moment before asking if he could help look for the amphibian runaway. "Ah, thanks. I still don't know why Trevor does that all the time." '_You kidding me? I'd be glad if I had a toad forced on me and it ran away all the time; I'd let the slimy thing do whatever it wanted…_'

They split up as it would enhance their chances of finding the damned toad, and Harry soon found himself relatively alone. Sniffing the air only once, he quickly found and snatched the slime ball before it could make its escape. Unsurprisingly, it was completely terrified of him. Before Harry could return it to Neville, a familiar face popped up out of nowhere, every bit as arrogant and smug as Harry remembered.

"What would you want from me, Malfoy?" Harry asked, not wholly without respect. His bored and neutral tone of voice and his blank expression triggered a rather pathetic temper tantrum from the young heir.

Listening to the blonde 'pureblood' whines and ravings wasn't quite as entertaining as Harry would've hoped. Frankly, it didn't do much to improve the 'Hybrid-Who-Lived"s mood at all. Harry was glad they were partially hidden from view, for shutting Malfoy up would require something that had no need for prying eyes. A feral smirk formed on Harry's face as he felt the changes in his eyes manifest.

Roughly ten minutes passed before Malfoy paused to take a breath, and it was only at that moment that Harry's eyes appeared in the spotlight. What came next was unavoidable, Harry just couldn't control himself; he snorted loudly. Malfoy, for that matter, had just fainted in the most dramatic and girlish manner one could come up with. '_So much for the elite 'purity' of blood. I wonder if his daddy would react the same way._'

Groaning, the boy in front of him woke up, blinking a few times in confusion. "Oi, Malfoy. I swear, if you ever start whining about something in my presence again, I'll tell your father of what happened just now. Got that, _Princess_?" Draco Malfoy, prominent pureblood and heir to the position of Lord Malfoy, shut his mouth for the first time in his life because of his embarrassment.

Harry proceeded to give the young Malfoy one last diabolic glare before making his way back to Neville. He was surprised when he came back in to the compartment, because there was now a red-haired boy sitting next to Neville, talking about chess. '_Chess, of all things._' Having never played the game before and expressing his lack of desire to start now very clearly, he cleared his throat. "Here's your toad back Nev, he was hiding in a toilet. Ah, no, not _in_ it, just behind the pot, if you know what I mean." Harry ignored the sniggering coming from the redhead. He had a funny smelling rat lying on the seat next to him. '_Pot is calling the kettle black again._'

"I do have to ask you though, why would you keep the damn thing on you anyway? It's a bloody toad. Nobody seems to have one of the slime balls these days. All they do is catch bugs because it's their food. Do you think that's useful or something?"

Neville was looking progressively more downcast as Harry berated him and his familiar without any malice, but it was obvious that it stung. Fortunately for Neville, he didn't need to answer, because the next thing that happened interrupted him before he could even open his mouth to begin a reply. Said thing, a girl, had just pulled the compartment doors open before declaring in a very annoying know-it-all voice that it was getting dark outside, and that they should change now. The redhead began to sputter something intelligible as his ears went red, and Neville blushed in a slightly more dignified manner. Harry didn't even blink.

"Would you mind giving us," he raised his hands slowly and made imaginary quotation marks with them, "'men' some privacy to do what you kindly suggested to us?"  
She stared at Harry, only to blush as well as she caught up with the context of his words, and ran off. The redhead's ears went a deeper shade of red. Neville's cheeks stayed the same. '_It is going to be so much fun to tease them with this._'

Shortly after they'd changed into their wizard robes, the train had reached its destination. After disembarking the wagon of which they had occupied a compartment, a loud and slightly accented voice rang through the chilly evening air. "First years, over here please! First years over here!"

The first year students had been assigned a boat they would have to share with three others. Harry found himself sitting in a little 'rowboat', huddled together with Neville, the bossy girl from earlier in the train and a new face; a blonde pureblood girl. After asking and receiving their names he was now giving 'his' in return. "Call me Thomas Anderson for now. It's not my real name, you'll be hearing that one soon enough. When you do, I expect you to slap yourselves on the forehead and berate yourselves for not noticing any sooneeeeeeer~."

He was lifted in the air by a ridiculously large tentacle, and was just about to shift into his Hybrid form when it put him back in the boat without giving him so much as a scratch. The three were staring at him with eyes the size of dinner plates as Harry quietly muttered words that would make seasoned militia blush. The bossy girl was the first one to recover from her stupor. "I guess that would be the giant squid…" She stammered weakly. "No shit, that's what you came up with? A wonderful observation of Mrs. Granger, ladies and gentlemen, give her the credit she's due!" Harry retorted, causing her to blush and earning snickers from Daphne Greengrass and Neville.

They made it to the castle without any other incidents. After they had set foot in the castle, mad cackling could be heard coming from somewhere over their heads. The ones that looked upwards to find its source were promptly struck in the face by a water balloon, which unsurprisingly enough busted. Harry paid whatever it was no attention and managed to keep himself dry, the accidental splashes from other first years not counted. A sudden hiss, courtesy of Harry made the hovering poltergeist cringe, and Peeves would find himself unable to enjoy any pranks for the rest of the evening.

The Sorting had begun without a hitch. Hermione was sorted into Ravenclaw after a while, and Daphne found herself in Slytherin, as her parents had predicted. There wasn't anyone called forward that Harry recognized for a while, but eventually Neville was called forth. After a few minutes of complete silence, he was sorted into "Gryffindor!" Thrown completely off guard, a bewildered Neville Longbottom found himself shaking hands and slapped on the back by a pair of redhead twins, no doubt older brothers of the one he met in the train.

The sorting continued, and a smug Draco Malfoy had been sorted into Slytherin as soon as the ragged Sorting Hat touched his head. When he trotted over to the Slytherin Table and saw that Harry was looking at him, he blanched slightly and gave an almost imperceptible nod. It didn't take long before Harry's name was called out, and he jogged to the Hat as quickly as he could while maintaining his 'human' appearance in front of the crowd of wizards. Murmurs rang through the dining hall as he made his way to the artefact that would place him in one of Hogwarts' four Houses. He put it on his head, and was slightly miffed to note that it was too large for his head, as it almost immediately slid down his face, covering his eyes in darkness. Almost immediately after it touched his head it began talking to him in his mind.

'Ah, young master Potter. Eager to learn I see. You are also very loyal to the ones close to you, and you understand the values of hard work. You have certainly enough courage in you to qualify for Gryffindor, and yet I can sense so many similarities with Slytherin within. A tough nut to crack, but have no worries… What is this? Not entirely human, are you? I have sorted a few werewolves in the past, but I must say that your case… is quite the intriguing one. Yes… I will keep your secrets as they are. You will find that if someone finds out that you are not human, you will find that it was either you who revealed it to them, or that they have discovered that little hidden truth by themselves. I can see that you do not wish to flaunt nor abuse your powers, and therefore I shall place you in the House of…'

* * *

A/N:

Looks like Draco has been taken care of, in a way. The first step has been made.

Yes, I threw Hermione to Ravenclaw. That is where she belongs; it's even confirmed in canon.

For those of you who are curious about the pairing I have decided for Harry, I have decided one for him, but haven't placed any clues as of yet, so feel free to speculate and guess about that.

Quirrell is dead and Voldemort is on his way back to Albania… is he?

You'll find out in the next chapter who is going to teach DADA the first year, and let me tell you this: it's someone from canon, and it's someone who has taught DADA in canon. A hint, or more of an elimination, it's not Snape. I don't hate Snape, I don't like him all that much either, but he's damn good writing material.

Harry is definitely OC. First of all, he's never met the Dursleys. Second, he has spend a decade with Lucian, so you're bound to run into a fundamentally different Harry. I read a crackfic here on ff dot net, and it was bloody hilarious. OC Dursleys, and a Harry partially raised by Hagrid, that turns out to be a 'muggle' weapons maniac. I completely loved the piece of literary nonsense. I think it was called PuppyDog Eyes. Read it, I dare you to.

An unofficial poll of sorts; Based on your decision as reader, I will send Harry to the House with the most reviews-that-specify-which-one. Multiple PMs are allowed, but in the end they will only count for one vote. Per person, that is. Let me point out that the House Harry will be sorted into will have little actual effect on the storyline, mostly a cosmetic one.

Stay tuned, and please, review if you can! Suggestions and constructive criticism is more than welcome! Thank you for the time you've wasted and / or spent, depending on your point of view, reading all this!


	4. Memoirs of a first year student

"Slytherin!"

Silence. Complete and utter silence followed that one, life-changing word. Harry knew he could expect a lot of things from life, but he had not a single clue about the significance of him being sorted into Slytherin. The murmurs of the crowd of underage wizards when his name was called out had been slightly unnerving at best, but the silence that had fallen was unbearable. He was about to ask if there was something wrong with him being sorted into Slytherin, as he recalled the earlier conversation with Neville about the Houses. He decided against speaking out.

This had been a good thing, because the twin redheads that were sitting at the Gryffindor Table were now looking at him with such predatory smirks on their faces, they were almost bordering on the murderous. Harry had to swallow deeply to soothe his nerves when he noticed their feral expressions. The old man at the middle of the teacher's table was staring at Harry with a pensive hint in his eyes, and they no longer had that twinkling lustre in them. Hagrid was gobsmacked, and the elderly witch that was calling their names for the Sorting was less than amused. A greasy-looking teacher had stiffened, and his face held something of a mix of fury and disbelief on it, judging from the twitching, repetitive scowls and incredulous expressions. Harry found the man's obvious predicament rather funny, but suppressed a snort.

Draco Malfoy was sweating figurative rivers of quicksilver at the moment. He never expected the mysterious monster-kid to be Harry Potter. When he found out along with the rest of Hogwarts that the very same person had been sorted into Slytherin, it blew him off the very face of the earth. The Boy-who-lived had been sorted into Slytherin House!

It was only because the elderly witch was one of the first to regain her composure that a riot had been prevented from erupting in the Great Hall. Harry would never come to know how close it had almost become. The sorting went on, and Harry was already thinking about how he was going to apologize to Neville and Hermione. Hey, Lucian had told him to make friends after all. He wasn't going to sacrifice the beginning friendships they had just for something stupid like House prejudices. He wasn't going to bother with the redhead he and Neville met on the train because, as odd as it may sound, something didn't smell right about him. Harry didn't like it, whatever it was, but it had something to do with the rat that smelled funny. Besides, taking the redhead's disdainful glare into account, Harry was fairly convinced that approaching him would end up in some random catastrophe. As confident as Harry felt, he wasn't going to tempt his fate in such ways.

Locking eyes with Neville for a moment, unspoken messages were exchanged between the two of them. After a while, the Gryffindor boy's frigid glare softened, and he broke eye contact to whisper something to the redhead twins, who turned to look at Harry with disbelief evident in their faces, for their lower jaws were hanging rather slack. Harry wasn't one to ignore that, and he raised a goblet while mouthing something unspoken. Apparently satisfied with the silent message, the duo scraped their jaws off the table and raised their own goblets, an act that did not go unnoticed by Dumbledore, McGonagall and, of course, Harry himself.

After they had finished their desserts, he was shaken out of his reverie when someone tapped him on the shoulder. It was the blonde girl he had 'shared a boat' with, Daphne Greengrass. She put a finger on her lips, and beckoned him to follow as she left the Great Hall, probably to ask him something in private. With a sigh he did as she asked, figuring that if she had planned anything funny he could deal with it. He was proven wrong of his twisted and morbid views as the glare she fixed on him mellowed slightly, and she began to ask him several questions. It vanished completely when he pinched her cheek, but before he knew she was out of sight before he could react and follow her. He swore he heard her gasp and stutter random words, among which were his own name and 'hottie'. '_Huh, didn't expect that to happen… I wonder if she'll still think of me that way once she finds _that_ out_…'

Harry slowly went on his way to the dungeons, where he knew the Slytherin Common Room was to be found, when he ran into the old man he recognized as the Headmaster. He was about to come up with some lame excuse for being in the corridors past curfew when the old wizard spoke first. "Harry, as much as it warms an old man's heart to see that you're in good health, both body and mind, I am afraid I have to ask you join me in my office for some time, mostly so because of your… place to stay during the past ten years, and during any and all future holidays you do not wish or are not able to stay at Hogwarts, the most obvious being the summers."

The aged Headmaster seemed slightly miffed at him, Harry couldn't figure out why and that was only because he didn't know that Lucian had taken him from his parent's house without telling anyone about **that** for a decade. Dumbledore didn't have the slightest clue about any and all of the places Harry had been during the past ten years, much less who had taken him.

The headmaster didn't have the official means to locate Harry until the boy would be of the age he would go to Hogwarts for his education, but the old man had petitioned the ministry for a one-time use of a modified point-me charm that was tuned to a specific person, and would 'tell' the user not only the location of the target, but also the target's health and age. It had taken him three years to get it off the ground, and the man was very disappointed when his guardianship claim over Harry had been denied. It meant that he couldn't use the aforementioned charm to locate the Boy-who-lived more than once, as it wasn't within his rights to do so any longer.

When the charm had been cast, it had revealed that the boy was as safe and sound as he could be, meaning that the boy was properly being taken care of, and Dumbledore was begrudgingly forced to drop the issue completely in the presence of the Minister of Magic and several Ministry Department Heads. The old Headmaster wasn't about to throw away his plans for the young Potter, if he could help it.

"I don't really mind, sir." In actuality, Harry _did_ mind, but he wasn't going to tell anyone about his real views on some things unless he would be able to trust them implicitly with his various secrets. "I must beg for your pardon, sir, if I may come across as a little irrational when we have our… parlay, if you will."

Harry had put that little warning there to gouge the old man's reaction. It was second nature to him now to plant information, whether it was actually false or not didn't matter, to confuse or unsettle his potential enemies. He didn't like it, but like the saying goes, he had to keep his friends close, and his enemies even closer.

Unbeknownst to the eleven years-old Harry Potter, when he finished his response Dumbledore had sent a mild Legilimency probe at him, for obvious and less obvious reasons. If the Headmaster of Hogwarts had any prior knowledge of Harry's true nature, perhaps he may have treated the boy with more caution. As it was, he was about to find out that his plans to mould him into his perfect sheep had gone and breathed their last breath with a loud and tired sigh.

How, one might ask, for Harry hadn't done anything to rebuke those shady plans, at least not with any outward conscious effort, as it turned out. Dumbledore probably wouldn't see the humour in it for the rest of his life, even if it slapped him in the face. His mind probe was grabbed straight away and forcibly drawn deeper inside the boys mind by something that if made an enemy, would put the rage of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, as the majority of Wizarding Britain referred to him, to bitter shame.

'_You would do very well not to linger in minds not your own, old man, and attempt to further your goals through conviction and taking direct, personal action, not meddling with lives not your own and watching things unfold with irreparable, not to mention unsavoury results. Do not tempt fate and draw the ire of beings that are greater than yourself, Dumbledore, for you will find that choosing the wrong puppet can and will have it annihilate its unworthy puppeteer. I do not know how many men have willingly walked to their unjust ends because of you, but I do not plan on doing the same. Do not say I did not inform you, old man, for this is the first and very last warning I will give you. You would do yourself a favour if you distance yourself from me, old man._'

"Now, there was something you wished to talk to me about, was there not?" Harry asked sweetly, his voice not showing the slightest indication of the threat he had just delivered. "Er, No, thank you, my boy… I dare say we can have that conversation some other time. I'm feeling rather tired now, and I'm sure you do the same with everything that has happened today. Get along now, Harry, a blissful night of sleep waits for both of us." Dumbledore frowned slightly, something that Harry didn't miss at all. The twinkle in the Headmaster's eyes was, unsurprisingly, absent.

"Thank you, Headmaster. I'll be on my way to the Slytherin dormitories, then." As if. Harry wasn't going to spend a single night in the castle at all if he could avoid it. The entire castle was still under the control of the old man, after all, and the least time spent in the presence of the meddling old coot was the best, in Harry's opinion, for he didn't trust the man in the slightest.

It was for that reason that Harry never entered the Slytherin Common Room during the night. It was only the following morning during breakfast, that it had become clear that Harry had done so, though nobody except Dumbledore held any suspicions that Harry was involved in something that was unheard of in the Wizarding world. Several high-profile Azkaban prisoners had been killed off in the most gruesome ways by an outside force, and another convict had been freed from his cell and was now at large. The reason Dumbledore thought it involved Harry Potter was all but for one reason.

Sirius Black was the one that had been freed last night.

* * *

A/N:

There we go. Slytherin Harry it is. Unsurprisingly he doesn't take shit from the old man. Disrespectful much? No.

Yay, Sirius is free. Expect a flashback in the next chapter on how he broke his godfather out of Azkaban.


	5. He's such a jolly good fellow, indeed!

The previous night:

Harry was thinking about his parents as he stuck to the shadows in the Hogwarts dungeons, taking a short nap without the sleeping part that generally came with it. In actuality, he wasn't thinking about his parents at all, but about the fact nobody had ever came looking for him.

There was Lucian, but the old Lycan had admitted he wasn't related to the boy's family, nor was he his godparent. There was something off about all this. There had been a war going on, Harry's parents had to have named somebody godfather or godmother if anything happened to them that left them unable to properly care for him. Someone they could trust their son's life with. Someone that would take care of Harry without question, unless he was indisposed or dead himself. So where was this person?

Deciding to use the fact that it was past ten o'clock in the evening for his benefit, Harry stood up with a barely audible grunt, and flexed his rigid arms and legs multiple times in an attempt to banish the numbness from his body. The missing godparent issue was bothering him. Harry was going to do what he always did when he was troubled by something. He would go flying until either he would get tired or something else had come up to distract him from his restlessness. Of course, he rarely tired himself out, so naturally it had to be something that had drawn his interest.

Sniffing the air, Harry determined that the greater part of the dungeons were currently unoccupied save for him, the greasy-looking man that had been sitting at the teacher's table, and he knew that the grease-face wasn't anywhere near the entrance to the Slytherin Common Room at all. As much as Harry found about the man in his first impressions of the Potion Master, one; he didn't seem to like Harry at all. Two; he would blatantly play favourites with the entirety of Slytherin House save Harry, of course, and third; the man was a social dung bomb, hardly able to read most atmospheres to save his neck.

Taking his chances with most of the student body sleeping at this point, Harry stealthily snuck out of the castle, using the cover of the darkness as much as possible as he stuck to the ceilings. For some reason, not a single teacher that Harry 'ran' into and that were on patrol that night paid any heed to his presence over their heads. Inwardly he rolled his eyes at their lack of environmental awareness. They were wizards, surely there had to be some charm that enabled someone to walk on walls, no?

A cat was hissing and snarling at him. Shit, just his luck to run into an animal. Harry muttered curses under his breath about being careless, before he struck the feline in the head with one of his bone claws. He felt sorry about killing an animal that had been unable to properly defend itself without proper cause, and on top of that, it had been relatively innocent as well. Or so he thought. Mrs. Norris had been a far from innocent creature, after all.

He took the cat's corpse with him to one of the castle's towers, only to throw it away from him in a reflexive motion as dozens of owls began to shriek and flap their wings in a panic. The dead cat sailed straight out of the window. His surprise turned to incredulity, incredulity turned to exasperation. '_Bloody hell! I did so not want that to happen! Fuck!_'

In order to calm himself down before he would do something incredibly stupid and irreversible, he began to summarize the various abilities his hybrid status had granted him, and he promptly forgot about the dead cat.

His physical strength had sky-rocketed off the charts in both his human and his hybrid forms.

He could change from and to both of his forms freely, and he had in fact begun to experiment with focused partial transformations, though it only seemed to extend to his eyes, his hands and his upper back. Those partial transformations were generally a world of pain, and he always felt horribly _twisted_ when he had done one.

He was able to emit something he had christened 'Fear', which was a combination of several fear-inducing pheromones that worked on most creatures, but it had very little to no effect on beings with a higher degree of sentience. Simply taken as an example are unicorns, though regardless of that 'immunity', unicorns still ran away from him as swift as their legs could handle. For some reason goblins were an exception on the rule, one that Harry had been unable to decipher, for goblins were at the very least as intelligent as humans. They were crude but highly efficient in finances and management, and their shrewd logic and cunning was top-notch.

Having calmed down considerably, Harry fell back on his earlier decision to go flying. Not sparing a single thought to the agitated avian creatures that were obviously panicking in the roosts above him, nor anything else for that matter, he charged forwards, jumped and was about to fall roughly hundred and sixty feet head-first to a rather gory death. If it wasn't for the fact that Harry had torn the part of his school robes that covered his chest to shreds and transformed into his hybrid form to access his wings, that this gruesome fate had been averted.

Harry didn't give a damn whatsoever. He had savoured the feeling of the wind rushing all around him every single time he went flying. It wasn't for the first time in his life that he wondered why he didn't just simply take off to the skies one day and never stopped flying save for those times when he would get tired or had to consume some modicum of blood.

He spread his wings and flew. He just flew on and on, past the steep cliffs that intoned the beginnings of the ocean. It hadn't been very long before the rhythm of his wings had gone and formed a monotonous mantra.

Harry had no idea how long he had been flying when a massive, worn-down building appeared in the distance. His curiosity sparked, he decided to go and investigate for whatever reason there was a stray building, out here, in the middle of no man's land.

A quick survey of the place revealed that it was a prison complex of sorts. More was revealed to him as he slipped inside through one of the windows that adorned the outer walls. Not for a single moment did he throw caution to the wind, as he had only barely evaded the attention of one of the gaolers. The thing, for a lack of a better word, was not even remotely human. In fact, it almost fit the image of the entity Lucian had once jokingly referred to as a reaper, the one key difference being that it didn't have a scythe in its putrid hands.

It exuded some aura that made Harry feel miserable. For the first time he understood why such a thing had been assigned the role of prison guard. Keeping criminals where they were was a lot easier if they were feeling miserable all the time. He mused that the prisoners probably had the worst time of their lives in this place.

Harry wiped the cold sweat off his forehead and was moving as swiftly as he could manage through the prison complex. A loud whimper caught his attention, and he had to jog back a bit to find out what had caused it. Harry felt sick in his stomach. For some twisted and demented reason those inhuman things had thrown a dog in one of the prison cells. The huge, black dog was shivering and whining softly as lied on the cold, hard floor of the caged prison cell. Even animals were treated like manure in this place, apparently.

Harry grated his teeth as he folded his wings and set out to work. Freeing the dog from its confinement would demand something he didn't want to become public knowledge, but he couldn't just leave the poor thing in there to rot, now could he? As he firmly wrapped his hands around the metal hand wheel that served as the locking mechanism, the dog seemed to wake up from the hellish nightmare. At that moment, Harry was almost convinced the dog seemed gobsmacked, but that was impossible. Animals never got gobsmacked, unless they weren't animals at all.

True to Harry's observational skills, the dog appeared to shrink. Into a human. Now it was Harry's turn to have his mouth fall open in bewilderment. It didn't last very long though, and the dog-turned-man almost cringed when Harry ripped the door off its hinges without any apparent effort. He cringed again when the very same door that had kept him confined to his cell was sent flying down the corridor, again without any apparent effort. The airborne door slammed into another, sending _that_ one careening over into the prison cell it was meant to keep shut.

Unfortunately for the prisoner inside, a beautiful woman with half-lidded eyes and a giddy expression on her face, the door slammed down promptly on the crown of her head. Bellatrix Lestrange née Black would wake up from her coma a few weeks after this incident without any memories of her past life. One might say that it was ironic. Harry, however, does not partake in ironic remarks. He only considers sarcasm, when and only when it suits his tastes of the blackest humour known to man.

"I do not know who you are, stranger… nor what you are…" the prisoner's haunted eyes briefly flashed over Harry's physique as if to evaluate him, "nor why you are here in Azkaban Prison… but I would like to ask you a few things… if you don't mind me doing so…" his hoarse voice trailed off momentarily.

"Do you by any chance… know of the Marauders…? The Potters…? Peter Pettigrew… A common grey rat… slightly plump… and with a toe missing on his front paw…?" The gaunt man asked him. Harry was about to scoff at the man until he realized that the man was talking about him and his deceased parents. '_No way… could this person be… someone that personally knew my parents? If so, he might know who my godparents are_!'

Another epiphany smashed into Harry's mind when he realized that the very same rat the man had described, did sound familiar. It was the rat that belonged to the redhead from the train! Harry was about to loudly exclaim his euphoria, but the man shushed him. "Are you bloody insane?! If the guards find out you've just demolished part of the prison without proper reason like you just did, they'll have you Kissed straight away!"

Harry, who of course didn't have an inkling about the Dementor's Kiss, snorted in contempt. Sirius Black gaped at the hybrid in front of him as if he truly were mad. Harry rolled his eyes at the man and signalled him to stay inside his cell for the time being. He sneaked off, leaving the man to fend for himself, simply because he didn't want a complete and utter stranger to know one of his weaknesses; his dependence on human blood.

Harry sniffed the air a few times to find out who would be the best choice to feed from. He had little qualms about his would-be victims. All those that were kept in Azkaban Prison were criminals. Criminals that had more than deserved the horror that was Azkaban if their presence was anything to go by. Surely giving them the mercy of the afterlife would be the preferred choice, Harry mused.

One hour later, several cells had been broken into rather forcefully, and now the walls were coated in a slimy, red and squishy paste, with shards and splinters of bone embedded in said paste, and Harry contentedly made his way back to the dog-turned-man prisoner's cell, whistling merrily. He had almost wanted to start his small feast with the unconscious woman in the cell, which he had cracked open like a walnut some time earlier, in a way he himself thought of as rather creative, but decided against that. Instead he killed off a few other inmates, draining them of their blood as completely as he could, grinning in delight as their life reinvigorated him and the struggling stopped as they died from the loss of blood. He then proceeded to smash their – now devoid of blood – remains to pulp.

Strangely enough, those reaper-like things didn't appear to stop him anytime during the graphic murders. It was almost like they were trying to avoid him like the plague. He paid this strange and mind-bending phenomenon little heed. Instead he grabbed the emaciated dog-turned-man by his shoulder and bolted off for whichever window that was closest to their position. Not even bothering to slow down at all, he threw the man he had been tugging along head-first through the open window, diving straight after him through the square-shaped gap in the rock wall.

Harry snickered after he elicited a yelp when he had tackled the man out of the air and subsequently caught him by both his arms, and all things considered, they were still falling, so it was a remarkable feat.

* * *

The next morning, Harry woke up from the noise made by the Slytherin Common Room being opened from the inside. Yawning, he decided to head to the Great Hall for something to eat. He was glad there was a lot of sugary food on the Slytherin table, because, if anything, it helped smoothen some of the rough edges of last evening and night.

Numerous owls flew into the Great Hall with the morning edition of some wizarding newspaper. The few students who were reading the front page began animatedly talking about something with their fellow students. Harry could pick up the words 'Azkaban' and 'Escaped' from four fellow students closest to where he was sitting.

Observing Draco Malfoy at the other end of the table paid off as his Slytherin year-mate noticed that Harry was looking at him. The Malfoy heir blanched, hurriedly snatched his school bag and ran off in what the kid probably thought of as a nonchalant and aloof attitude. Either Malfoy had completely forgotten about his own copy of the newspaper, or he had simply finished reading and didn't care about the paper anymore.

Harry decided to wait for a couple of minutes before standing up and walking down the aisle to get a look at the contents of the newspaper that Malfoy had discarded. Seeing the article on the front page he had to suppress a gleeful giggling fit.

**Azkaban Jailbreak! Slaughtered Inmates!**

**Sometime during last evening or night, something had broken _in _and_ out_ of Azkaban Prison through as of yet undisclosed means, and appears to have gruesomely murdered several Azkaban inmates, among which are Antonin Dolohov, Rodolphus and his brother, Rabastan Lestrange. Also, Bellatrix Lestrange née Black has been found in her cell, barely alive. It appears that through blunt force trauma to the head, she has lost consciousness. The exact condition of Lestrange is as of yet unknown.**

**Worse yet, the infamous Dark Wizard known as Sirius Black has also vanished without a trace. Black had been found guilty of the killing of twelve muggles and a wizard, Peter Pettigrew. Black had also betrayed the Potters to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, which resulted, as we all know, in the tragedy that befell the Potters that same night on October 31, 1981.**

**Even more frightening are the abilities of this unknown and possibly highly dangerous creature. It is believed to be vampiric in origine, judging from the vague details about the circumstances of the Death Eaters' gruesome ends, which were released in an official statement from the Head Warden of Azkaban Prison. Furthermore, it is revealed that –whatever it is - it is capable of exerting physical power equivalent to that of a Half-giant. Perhaps the most alerting characteristic about this new and unknown threat is the fact that one of the Azkaban Prison Guards, more commonly known as Dementors, had been unable to apprehend this creature through any means available.**

**Since most means of magical transportation are effectively nullified in the direct vicinity of Azkaban, it is safe to assume that this creature is capable of self-sustained flight or had an object or creature capable of such available for transport.**

**It should be stressed that under no circumstances should one approach Sirius Black, nor this new and highly dangerous Dark Creature. No doubt they will try to garner support for something nefarious. If one does find him- or herself in the company of one of the aforementioned two, contact the Auror Division of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement of the Ministry of Magic as soon as possible.**

**For more information on the protective measures that will be granted to Hogwarts, school for young witches and wizards, in regards to this unexpected escape, read page three. For Headmaster Dumbledore's concerns about these new developments, read page four. For more information about the killed and in one instance incapacitated Death Eater convicts, read page six.**

Having finished reading the article, Harry quietly observed the occupants of the Great Hall. Hermione seemed to be pondering about something, while Neville seemed to smirk for some reason. Harry narrowed his eyes. '_Did some of those Death Gnashers – or whatever they're called – do something to relatives of Neville or something?_

It was at that moment that he felt the characteristic tap on his shoulder. Thinking it was Daphne, he slowly turned to greet her. Only to find that it hadn't been Daphne Greengrass at all.

"What would a -" he shot a brief glance at her house insignia, "ickle Hufflepuff like you want from a sneaky Slytherin?"

"Just wanted to talk to you about something. You're the 'Boy-Who-Lived' and everything, you defeated You-Know-Who. This means you are powerful. Ignoring the fact you are a Slytherin… Nobody in their right mind should try anything funny with you, know what I mean?"

"And this has to do with…?" Harry asked, confused.

"I'm getting to that. I also noticed Malfoy being rather on edge ever since he set foot in the school. It tells me something is going on, because he should be acting all high and mighty, not like a cowering little ferret." She continued. "And with the whole thing going on in Azkaban right now… Something tells me you're involved in all of these things."

"Sharp, aren't you? I wonder why you think I'm somehow involved in those two incidents. As far as I can tell they're not exactly directly related to each other. I do have a question for you though. Tell me, what do you know of Samhain?" Harry asked her.

"What are Samhain, again?" She seemed to be genuinely puzzled by his question.

"Never mind. Anyway, it's about time we go to each our respective class, don't you think?"

Harry found himself standing in one of the greenhouses on the grounds a few minutes later. The variety of plants it housed was astonishing. He recognized only a few of them, and that was because Lucian had given him a lecture on the various kinds of poisonous plants. The old Lycan had done so because Harry had almost thrown a few handfuls of leaves of a particularly nasty plant in their dinner one night. He swallowed at the thought what would've been a painful and slow death for the both of them.

He was shaken out of his reverie by the chimes of a bell, indicating that the Herbology class was over. With a sigh he packed and sauntered back to the castle for his next class. Potions was up next.

* * *

A/N:

There you go. The Azkaban Scene.

Poor Mrs. Norris - Nah. Bloody cat gets what she deserves, innit? 'Pop goes the weasel' or in this case cat and all that shizz.

I retconned my statement about Harry's physical strenght a bit. I tuned it down to Half-giant strenght because, believe it or not, Hagrid is awesome, no? I mean, he knocks down a door with ease, bends the barrel of a hunting rifle with extreme ease, and he's able to throw people several feet through the air. If that ain't the definition of awesome, I don't know what is!

Samhain, as in the spirit of Halloween; though it's also used in the television series Supernatural as a white-eyed demon. An 'alias' Harry will use for his hybrid form in case he needs to be in his hybrid form in public. No pumpkin-head relations, though.

That poisonous plant Harry is referring to is in fact Atropa Belladonna, otherwise known as Nightshade. A nasty plant indeed.

Reviews are most welcome!


	6. First impressions, a truly unlucky troll

Harry Potter normally had a great deal of patience, but this man was actually capable of forcing it to its limits. All that in less than three minutes flat after entering the classroom, introducing himself with a sneer that would have made Harry wonder if the guy's face had been carved in stone, if it were not for the perpetual grease that just, like, oozed off the man, and immediately beginning to flick subtle but insulting jabs at him.

"Harry Potter… Our… Great… Celebrity…" the grease-face drawled, much to the annoyance of the subject student. Inwardly rolling his eye at the farce, Harry smoothly replied. "What's it to ya? Envious, aren't we, sir?"

"TEN POINTS FROM GRYFFINDOR FOR YOUR CHEEK, INSOLENT LITTLE BRAT!" Snape bellowed, obviously having forgotten what Harry's actual House was. Perhaps it were delusion or hallucinations inspired by the brewing of a potion gone wrong. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that the Potions teacher was fuming because of Harry's obvious lack of respect of his superiors. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that Severus Snape loathed everything about James Potter, the thought that said person had been dead for the last ten years not even popping up in the man's mind. Perhaps it simply meant the man was as much of a dolt as the posterior of a donkey.

Harry swore he could the anterior of said donkey loudly balking in offense. '_Sorry, my bad._'

It took a while, but eventually the man was able to calm himself down considerably, but judging from the sharp breaths he was still taking in, it wasn't nearly enough yet. Harry wondered if he could get the man to hyperventilate before the hour was over. Clearly the Potions teacher hadn't had enough yet, because now he began asking all sorts of questions. Questions about various potions and their ingredients.

"Potter, what would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Hermione's hand shot up so fast Harry suspected she had dislocated her shoulder, because she grimaced in pain shortly after. "I… Don't know, sir." Harry answered, not taking his eyes away from her. He really didn't know the answer. Whatever potion those ingredients were for, Harry was sure it wouldn't be found in the first year syllabus.

"Hmph. Seems like being a Potter doesn't amount to anything… Where can I find a bezoar?"

Hermione's hand again ripped through the air with speeds that made Harry a hundred per cent sure that she had injured part of her body.

"A bezoar… in the stomach of a goat, sir?" This one, he could answer. Living with Lucian for ten years, occasionally poaching or buying barnyard animals from farmers mostly for a variety in food, tended to enlighten one in the more characteristic quirks and habits of animals. After having found a small stone in the stomach of a goat for the umpteenth time, Harry knew that this particular quirk had to have some significance.

He'd only found the answer to the mystery of the stomach stones during those two weeks in between his visit to Diagon Alley and the Hogwarts Express departure from Platform 9 and ¾, when he read through some of his books simply because he had been bored.

"Correct, just this once. What is the difference between monkshood and wolvesbane?"

Hermione's hand shot up in a split-fraction of a second, but this time she let out a soft moan of pain as she strained her muscles beyond their limit for the third time. Harry was getting worried about her drive to prove herself. If she wasn't careful she could end up becoming a social pariah, or worse. '_The nail that sticks out gets hammered back in. In her case, it'd probably end up being yanked from the plank rather roughly, I might say._'

"Just the name, sir. It's also known as aconite." Harry answered, trying not to sound too smug or too disrespectful. Having your ears ring because of a teacher yelling at you at the top of his voice really killed the mood.

"Hmph. Seems like you aren't all useless, Potter, for a Gryffindor." '_Okay, it's official, the man is delusional. I think he erased his memory of me being sorted in Slytherin. Couldn't handle the shock, silly little nutter._' Grease-face suddenly glared at the other students. "Well, why aren't you all writing this down?"

The rest of the class went fairly eventful after that. Snape appeared to ignore Harry for the most part, clearly intent on spending as little time and attention on the 'Boy-Who-Lived' as possible. Harry found this new approach much more comfortable and welcomed it with open arms. It left him some leeway, which he needed, for he had a lot of work cut out for him. '_I'm the only one that can do it. Nobody knows that I'm the 'Azkaban Monster', and Sirius is still on the run from the Ministry. Besides, I'm the one that's in the better position to snatch Pettigrew. Now I just need to figure out how to do it. Wait… Yes, that ought to work. Now I just need an appropriate distraction for this to work._'

* * *

Several weeks' worth of eating, classes, eating, more classes, eating, free time, sleeping in the shadows outside his common room, and yet more free time went by rather quickly and before anyone knew it, All Hallows' Eve was upon them. Nothing of interest seemed to have happened today either, and he still didn't have had the opportunity to separate a rat from it's redhead master. Harry had begun to itch for a bit of activity some few hours ago. It had begun with a slight gut feeling, and gradually Harry began to look like as if he suffered from a bout of hyperactivity. He simply couldn't stay still any longer than a few seconds. He found out why a few moments later.

A ghastly smell wafted into the Great Hall. It was very faint, but it was the most awful smell he ever encountered. Harry involuntarily remembered what his sweater smelled like a few months ago when he had been shopping in Diagon Alley and he had killed off the idiot that had tried to rob Gringotts'. It didn't even compare at all.

He slowly stood up and began walking towards the door, intent on finding out what was causing that horrible odour, when he recalled how Hermione had ran away from the Gryffindor Table. '_Shit, she's probably still crying about that bloody insult the redhead git blurted at her earlier this morning… God knows what'll happen to her if that ruddy thing, whatever it is, decides to pay her a visit.'_

Forcing himself to act as if he was just going to the loo, which in fact he was about to anyway, he calmly disappeared from view. Following the trail of scent easily, he soon found himself staring face-to-face with a four feet tall, dull gray-skinned and incredibly stupid waste of space with a disproportionately sized piece of something that marginally looked akin to either A the most gnarled piece of wood ever, B, a most uniquely carved piece of stone, or C, one of the largest bones in existence which had been put into a wood shredder and didn't come out all that right. '_Is it just me, or does this thing totally not belong here? Can't be right if it does…_'

For a troll, it was a very smart specimen, because it failed to meet up to the standard ten seconds incoherent thinking of 'A, Smash, B, Puke, C, Grunt, or D, try to eat raw.' With remarkable speed, it swung the thing it was holding at Harry, who was now trying to find out what it had been made from. Unsurprisingly, it struck him full in the chest, sending him flying through the corridor, eventually making him hit the wall with a dull 'Bwam'. '_Seriously, it's like I'm starring in some low ranked action movie. How long did I have to fly anyway?_'

Deeply annoyed and injured, and although his injuries were healing almost flawlessly, Harry decided to be done with it. Unbuttoning his vest with unparalleled speed and precision, he tied it to his waist to prevent having to damage it, for he really liked that piece of clothing. Allowing only one bone claw to emerge from his back, he rose to his feet and somersaulted backwards, placing his feet on the wall in preparation for a highly daring move. One could say that Harry was now trying to kill both his foe and himself with the same action. Harry found he couldn't disagree.

He kicked off with all the strength he could muster, and after barely avoiding becoming a pancake-sized stain on the floor, he jammed his bone claw upwards, entering through the mouth. The result was an oversized scythe-like claw firmly lodged in a now dead troll's skull. Wincing in pain as his ribs finally mended themselves in the right place; Harry grasped the massive club, weighing it in his hand before he nodded in satisfaction, walking away with it as a trophy. '_This could come in handy one day. Well, what do ya know? It's made of bone after all! Lucky me!_'

Hearing people approaching, Harry quickly removed his bone claw from the troll's skull before dashing up the wall to the ceiling, digging his transformed hands in the stone for support. Not a second too early, because the distressed voice of the transfiguration teacher rang out. "Surely you do not think that a student would've gone and went looking for that…?"  
She sounded truly concerned. Harry sniffed the air briefly, recognizing the additional scents of the Headmaster, the potions teacher and the charms teacher-gnome amidst the foul stench of the freshly killed troll. "Minerva, I do not think… Oh my…"

Harry tried to look downwards at that point. The troll had only just flopped down on his back, the formerly sturdy and rigid legs no longer supporting its dead weight. "Albus... whit is th' meanin' ay thes?" The Scottish brogue of the transfiguration teacher rang out, signifying her emotional distress at the sight in front of her.

"My dear Minerva… It means there is more to this than what one might see at first glance. At least the students are no longer in danger." His voice sounded calm, collected. '_Yeah, and I bet you think it's got something to do with 'ickle Potter. Jackpot, ye ol' coot. You should try and see my psychologist. Maybe she's got something to tell you that's along the line of 'Dirty old men do not touch helpless children!'_'

"Albus… it's still bleedin'. Whatever it is 'at is capable ay takin' doon a fully groon ben troll wi' wee mair than… Ah don't ken whit kin' ay man-made ur goblin-made weapon coods be used fur this… Th' stab woond doesn't match onie knoon troll slayin' armaments. It is unheard ay fur a weapon loch 'at tae e'en be able tae tak' doon a troll in th' first place. It doesn't make onie sense at aw! An' tae hink 'at thaur is someain 'at is walkin' aroond wi' thes hin' in its possession oan th' skale groonds, ah cannae sleep weel at nicht knowin' students ur in danger!" she all but yelled, barely restraining herself.

Harry was thinking she'd burst a blood vessel in her brain as the transfigurations teacher attempted to vent her emotional distress, but he commended her concerns for the students. Thus far, she was the only one with any common sense as a teacher. Harry didn't think that Grease-face would see to protect any students other than the Slytherins save Harry, of course.

Harry was finally left alone to execute his plans to isolate Peter Pettigrew as the teachers and the Headmaster went in search for a more private location to continue their deliberation about the dead troll and its killer. He dropped down from the ceiling and ran off.

* * *

A/N: Short chapter, I know.

Translation for those that aren't scottish; Albus... it's still bleeding. Whatever it is that is capable of taking down a fully grown mountain troll with little more than... I don't know what kind of man-made or goblin-made weapon could be used for this... The stab wound doesn't match any known troll slaying armaments. It is unheard of for a weapon like that to even be able to take down a troll in the first place. It doesn't make any sense at all! And to think that there is something that is walking around with this thing in its possession on the school grounds, I cannot sleep well at night knowing students are in danger!

**Voider**: Hagrid having Harry's Vault Key on him isn't something I just came up with on a whim; J.K. Rowling did. All I did was incorporating that little tidbit in to the story, and since Harry ran into Hagrid in Gringotts, the key comes only into play at that moment. As for Harry flying to Azkaban, at first he had no idea where he was heading, he just went flying. Once he got there, his curiosity took over and he decides to investigate 'the gloomy, seemingly abandoned building on a rock in the middle of freaking nowhere'. And Sirius telling a total stranger his biggest secret and regrets... I reckon he'd be a little drowsy from his Dementor-inspired nightmare, and he was about to lose all hope of ever getting out of Azkaban. Remember, it was only once he recognized Pettigrew on that front page Daily Prophet picture in Book III that his will to live came back, no?


	7. What it takes to cash in a debt

Climbing the Hogwarts walls had been easy enough once Harry began looking for crevices and cracks in the stone. In fact, it was almost so easy that the earlier idea of simply flying up was discarded shortly after he glanced upwards. '_Besides, I'll attract attention from people if they happen to look out a window and spot me in flight. Can't have a riot break loose because of some idiot thinking there's a monster outside._'

It didn't take long before Harry began to softly hum the rhythm of a song he'd heard in the non-magical world during the summer, and he just couldn't shake it off of him. He began singing the lyrics about a minute later; he simply couldn't resist hearing the words in his own voice.

"_Sleep with one eye open, gripping your pillow tight.  
__  
Exit light,  
__Enter night.  
__Take my hand,  
__We're off to never never-land._

_Something's wrong, shut the light,  
Heavy thoughts tonight,  
and they aren't of Snow White.  
__  
Dreams of war,  
__Dreams of liars,  
__Dreams of dragons' fire,  
__And of things that will bite, yeah._

_Sleep with one eye open, gripping your pillow tight._

_Exit light,  
__Enter night.  
__Take my hand,  
__We're off to never never-land._"

He stopped for a moment, noticing that he had almost arrived at his destination; the tower that house the Gryffindor Common Room. Gritting his teeth in concentration, he continued his ascension. Finally he would get that bloody rat and watch it burn, in the figurative tense.

Opening a window and sneaking inside, he quickly made his way through the various male dormitories in his search for the first years', and Pettigrew. His face cracked open in a malicious grin as he rummaged through the unlocked and open trunk with the name Ronald Weasley on it, his hand almost mechanically grabbing the rat cage and holding it up in front of him, at the level of his eyes.

"Eeeeeeeeveeeeeeniiiiiiinnnnng, Pettiiiigreeeeew!" he drawled, watching in sadistic glee as the trapped rat tried to find a way out of its confinement. While the thin barrier offered merely a protection of the utmost minimum from Harry, it also served to keep the rat animagus locked up. "Are we having a nice day? Yes you are, yes you are!" he cooed in a voice that would've made Bellatrix Lestrange, if she had access to her Death Eater Days memories, very, very proud. Harry felt a grin crawl on his face once more, as the rat began running and hopping and doing all sorts of frantic idiocy in obvious terror.

"You know… Here I was thinking you were a devious and highly cunning rodent, but you're just a clumsy, stupid and snivelling wretch that should've just died alongside my parents. For whatever reason that bastard Voldemort decided to keep the useless shit you are alive is beyond me. Farewell, Pettigrew. Your borrowed time has finally come to an end."

It was at this moment that the rat began to twist and spasm uncontrollably in the cage. Within seconds there was a terrified man in the place of the rat. He reeked of excrements. "Harry… please… Have mercy on a friend of your father… James wouldn't have wanted you to kill me!"

Harry watched on with a dispassionate and stone-cold mask on his face. "Sadly, I don't know anyone by the name of James… and I never knew my father thanks to you and the Dark Moron you serve, so I can't tell if he wanted you to live. Nobody can, Pettigrew," he spat the name, "because you decided to surrender the lives of my parents just to save your own. Because you couldn't resist a simple thing. Because you couldn't muster the tiniest piece of courage needed to keep a 'friend' and his family safe. It was, after all, your choice that decided the events to come. Now, you finally reap the rewards for your mistake. Once again, farewell, Pettigrew."

Harry lunged forwards with inhuman speeds, aiming his open hand at the man's cheek. It struck with unforgiving precision. A loud snap could be heard, and Pettigrew was no more. All that was left was a jerking body with a loosely attached neck, lolling about as the corpse fell on the floor in a way that was simply pathetic.

"The devil, if there is one, better throw you in the deepest pits of purgatory, snivelling rat. Betrayal is the worst sin there is, and you did so willingly." Harry spat on the floor. "Now, let's go get your name cleared for real, Sirius, you bloody idiot."

An interruption came charging into the room in the form of a pair of red-headed twins. Harry turned around to greet them. "Evening, Messrs Weasley. I trust that you know what I am doing in the middle of a dormitory that I normally wouldn't have any business in?"

"Yeah, we -" the first began.

"figured as much -"

"after looking on a certain map of Hogwarts -"

"seeing the name of a supposedly dead person -"

"who was part of a group of pranksters -"

"which also included your father -"

"and one Sirius Black -"

"who had escaped Azkaban a few months ago -"

"and after asking old McGonagall about the whole thing with Black-"

"we could only come to one conclusion -"

"things aren't what they seem to be."

Harry stood there, mouth agape, as the twins finished their concerted speech. "Do you guys practice that sort of thing or does it just come naturally?"

"A bit -"

"of both, to be honest -"

"with you, Harry."

"Right… Well, let me finish up wrapping a dead guy and see to it that a man, who should've never seen the prison he spent ten years in, for a crime he never committed, finally gets what he deserves. I would suggest that you close your eyes, that is, if you value the ignorance over things that take far too much time and consternation to explain and as such, I would rather see that those be kept secret."

"No way, Harry -"

"We're already into this mess -"

"up to our necks -"

"and as such, we no longer care -"

"what else you can possibly -"

"throw at us."

"Fine, whatever you want. Do not complain afterwards if you preferred not to witness this in the first place."

"Wouldn't dream of it, Harry -"

And with those words, Harry transformed into his full hybrid form.

"Please don't eat me!"

"And me!" Harry had to stifle a snort when the second twin added those two words to his brother's shout.

"Blimey, Harry… I can see why you wanted this kept secret…"

"You were behind that Azkaban fiasco as well, weren't you?"

Harry had to change his vocal cords back to their human shape, for he couldn't talk any sensible language in his hybrid form. "Yeah, I was. Imagine my surprise when I run into this Azkaban place in the middle of the ocean when I went looking for a source of fresh human blood that wasn't a student or teacher at Hogwarts. After deciding to check it out, I find out my godfather is in prison for something he didn't do, and who the real criminal is."

"Blimey… and all that in the first night after you took the Hogwarts Express at platform 9 and 3/4."

"I don't even want to think about what your life must've been before you took the train."

"Hectic. More chaotic than you probably can achieve with those ungodly pranking skills of yours."

"No doubt about it, -"

"Harry, progeny of Prongs."

Harry had nothing more to say for a while. The twins wisely decided to leave him be, while Harry sorted out his thoughts. Then something hit him.

"Who or what the hell is Prongs?"

* * *

A/N:

Pop goes the rat.

Harry has the support of the twins, even though he isn't all that sure of them yet himself.

Next chapter; Sirius might get an official pardon from the ministry if he decides to show up. After everything he's been through, I figure he wouldn't.

I was thinking about giving Harry two or more **Animagus** forms; one for the human side and one for his Corvinus side of his ancestry. Let me tell you this; his first form will be decided by the poll, his second will be decided by me. So far it doesn't look like he won't have a second form, if the votes are anything to go by.

I've already come up with a couple of forms he might obtain. They're more or less inspired by James Cameron's Avatar, and they're rooted in the native fauna of Pandora. One animal in particular sounds very tempting for me to integrate into this story, and it is a predator.

I'll leave it up to you to decide what it will be. Not that there are many options available anyway.


	8. Kansas City Shuffle with the Ministry

Don't own, don't want. Now give me my goddamn cupcake!

* * *

Harry had simply marched into the Ministry of Magic, chest bare and transformed in his hybrid form, with Pettigrew's dead body slung over one shoulder, and leaning on his other shoulder was a downsized version of the troll's club, which he had been working on during the two hours or so it took him to fly to London, to get the size a little more into proportion for his own future use. The weight hadn't been much of a problem to Harry, but the sheer size of the thing had been.

He knew where the Ministry was located simply because he had visited it with Lucian during the summer once, at the time masquerading as a human, his true human identity hidden by means of a black bandanna and a pair of dark glasses. It was his very status as a lycan-vampire hybrid that ensured that he'd never had to suffer from any form of deterioration of his eyesight, his regenerative abilities made sure of that. Thinking back to his appearance that day, a trace of a smile graced his face. '_I definitely looked good that day… There isn't a better day in a man's life when he looks good to the world and himself. I can't wait to show the rest of Hogwarts my gift by the graces of god. Er, my good looks, right._' He inwardly joked.

The faint smile quickly faded when a Ministry representative called Dolores Umbridge, as she had haughtily referred to herself, promptly fell out of the sky, or so it looked like to Harry, and had immediately began running off her mouth, some of the things said really got on his nerves, and Harry only barely restrained himself from tearing her to shreds.

For some reason the toad-like woman was trying to stop him from advancing through the Atrium of the Ministry of Magic with a modified troll's club and a dead body on his person, making a theatrical play from the ordeal, the terms she used not for the faint of heart. Chalking her sour expression up to the list of things that made his day, let's say, not among the best in his life, it was more than obvious that she wasn't all that fond of magical creatures. '_Damn and I thought that the Malfoy kid and the red-head were bad enough in that regard. Guess I was wrong._' As he thought that, he allowed his vocal cords to take on their human characteristics, enabling him to speak. And he was about to open a serious can of verbal whoop-ass on the toadish woman standing a few metres away from him.

"Woman, if you actually value your life I kindly suggest you move out of my way. Unless you'd rather meet the fate of the troll I killed to get a hand on this," he put the club on the floor with a loud thud, if only to indicate it was there. "Or perhaps you wish to die the way this snivelling, pathetic, traitorous wretch did. Either way, feel free to choose." He added, in the coldest and most spiteful tone of voice he could muster at the moment.

She flinched. Obviously she didn't expect him to be able to form a sensible word, much less manage to dish out a threat. Her face went slack, her eyes unfocused and she started to spout nonsensical but highly derogatory words, as if she was trying to convince herself that he wasn't even there. Harry's sneer intensified. If there was one thing he loathed from the absolute depths of his being, it was ignorance being performed willingly. Ignorance intermingled with unjustified delusions of superiority. '_Let her try. Let her try and face the results of her blatant insolence and her lack of common sense. I don't think that she'll learn her place in the world, though. She's far too ignorant for that._'

"Didn't you hear me? I believe I told you to scram. It'd be in your best interest to do just that, unless you think you have a better idea in mind. I doubt you do, so for the last time, get out of my damn way!"

She was even more stupid than Harry thought to be possible, because she didn't heed his threats nor the final chance he gave her. As he gave her one last condescending glare when he moved past her, she did something that she shouldn't have done if she had any form of common sense in her head. She grabbed Harry's arm, and he thought for a moment that she would rip it off. Then he smirked, exposing his frightening set of teeth.

"Congratulations, you've just made the single worst mistake of your miserable, worthless and now about-to-end life." He stated in a false-cheery tone, before spurring into action so quickly it was over before it even began.

To the random man in the crowd that was watching the ordeal, it probably looked like a strange object ripped out of the creature's back and before anyone could react, impaled the toad-like woman in the throat, stopping mere millimetres from her spinal cord. It looked all too much like a snake that lashes out against a threat. It was removed within the same second, as if Harry couldn't stand the contact with her. The woman, however, let go of Harry's arm and was now desperately trying to shout for help, clutching the wounded part of her trachea.

Suffice to say she didn't receive any, for no sound would come out of her mouth. It opened and closed much like goldfish breathing, while blood gushed forth from the orifice. Briefly glancing back as he made his way to one of the elevators at the opposite side of the Atrium, Harry found each and every Ministry employee present looking on with an impassive face. '_Damn… that stings. I guess she wasn't exactly Miss Popularity in this place, but damn, that just has to sting._'

He pressed the button for the floor that housed the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, before casually making an inverse nod to the man looking at him to his right, as if to say 'What's up?' The ministry employee quickly averted his gaze, but Harry sensed that he shot a few brief curious glances at him. Harry smirked at that and at the same time, he inconspicuously confirmed that the glass containers with Sirius' memories inside them were still intact.

It didn't take long for him to arrive at the intended floor, and he found himself in the presence of several veteran Aurors glaring at him. It was like they knew he was coming, something that proved to be valid when one of them coolly made his way to Harry. '_Now that's just disturbingly creepy… and not in a good way._'

"I take it you're here for Director Bones? I don't know what your intentions are, but if you try anything funny, well, let's just say that it won't be a pretty sight to behold." The tall, black Auror closest to him stated in a cool, collected voice. Then, as he moved closer to Harry, he whispered something in his ear that soothed some of the uncertainties of his altercation with the toad-like woman from earlier.

"Nice job silencing Umbridge, kid. Don't go feelin' bad about that barmy toad. She should've seen it coming a mile away. A friend of mine, a third cousin twice removed had, at the time an infant, been bitten by a werewolf, during a full moon night, at some point during the war, and let's just say he wasn't all that happy when that _woman_ popped out of nowhere and began to dictate stuff like it was her birthright. Couldn't do anything about it then, and things only got worse from that point on for him. Poor lad. Here, let's go see Director Bones now, I'm sure she'll want to ask some questions about where you found that body. Who knows, maybe it'll clear up some confusion about a rather shady business that'd probably involve the Potter kid somehow. You'll never know what crazy stuff comes around when you're just doing your job." He discreetly winked at Harry.

Harry cast a confused look at the Auror, certainly not expecting this. He'd thought he'd have to put on a bit of a fight to get to see some results, but their unexpected and most of all, unexplained lack of hostile intent was… unnerving. Especially when he didn't even remotely resemble a human being. He tried to shrug his growing sense of impending doom off for the time being, but couldn't smooth the rough edges of it.

"Fine, escort me to… Director Bones, you said? I don't have all day and I want this madness to be dealt with. I have a lot of things I need to see done and taken care of before the next day." He grunted, hiding his growing suspicion that things were going a little too smooth, almost as if someone had a major hand in some elaborate scheme that involved Harry just a little too much to ignore. '_Whatever it is that's going on here, it most likely won't be good. I really don't feel all that comfortable when things fall into their place without proper… light shed on some of the more obscure aspects of things…_'

Barely ten minutes later, he found himself in the intimidating presence of 'said Director Bones', the Aurors that had 'escorted' him politely nodded and left the office, Harry nervously following their leaving silhouettes out of the corner of his eye, focusing his attention on the head of the MLE department only when she cleared her throat.

"Sit down and speak up. What business would have one being such as you have with a mere mortal witch such as myself? I'm well aware of your status as this… 'Samhain' character as you refer to as yourself in public, and your involvement in the Azkaban incident two months ago… Mr. Potter… Though I find it hard to imagine you would liberate a man that allegedly bears the responsibility of the death of three of his friends. A man that supposedly delivered two of those very friends directly in the hands of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."

An unpleasant grin made its way on Harry's visage, intensifying the already unnerving aspects of his appearance. Her face remained impassive, increasing his opinion of her by a large margin. "My, my… you're certainly something else… Ma'am." He inclined his head, letting out a brief chuckle in amusement, before growing serious.

"I'd rather stay standing. As you without a doubt already know but merely wanted to hear from my own mouth… I'm here to ensure the rightful freedom of a man persecuted for a poorly conducted murder investigation. My good friend here can attest to that…" He all but threw Pettigrew's corpse into the chair he had been asked to take a seat in barely a minute earlier. "I do hope you have a way to gain insight in memories," Harry continued, as he removed the three tiny flasks from his pocket and carefully placed it on the desk stationed in front of him. "I think that those will prove very interesting… Oh, and do search Pettigrew's arms, it'll prove to be at least as interesting as the memories… It was nice to meet you in person, Madam Bones. Have a good evening."

A faint smile snuck on his face as he heard her gasp in complete surprise. "How on earth does HE have the Dark Mark?" It was the last thing he heard before he bolted for the elevator as fast as he could handle while trying to avoid an unnecessary collision into someone else. '_No going back now, she already has everything she needs to make a solid foundation to publicly announce Sirius' innocence._'

* * *

Harry had been scouting the castle for a potential place to spend the night. His usual place to sleep outside the Slytherin Common Room was not the most comfortable one, and he really wanted a decent night of sleep this time. Harry had no idea where he was, and he was walking up and down the same corridor in exasperation. 'God, I really need a decent night's sleep, I'm knackered…'

To his complete surprise, a nondescript wooden door appeared out of nowhere. Thinking it was a prank of sorts, Harry cautiously approached the newly formed doorway, wary of any rigged booby-trap that might've been put in place. He soon found out there wasn't any, to his relative relief. It was only after he'd closed the door behind him that something happened that startled him witless. An amber eye the size of a cartwheel was staring at him, and Harry recoiled in surprise.

"God, how many times have I told you shouldn't do that, Seth…? You and your blasted sense of melodramatics are going to kill me one of these days…" He smiled to take some of the sting off his words. He and the enormous avian were getting along rather well lately, though he still hadn't gotten used to the archaic style of speech the bird used. Harry had come up with the name 'Seth' simply because he found it a fitting name for the ethereal raven.

"**Fledgling… you wish to deny me that insignificant pastime?**" Seth's calm voice didn't give any indication that he was hurting, but Harry knew better than that. For Seth it was almost second nature when it came to hiding how he truly felt and it was a good thing that Seth wasn't capable of making those infernal 'puppy dog eyes', Harry just couldn't stand it when somebody fired the damned things at him. If Seth was able to make those then it'd be a whole different story.

"Nah, wouldn't do that to you, after all, I'm the only one that can see you, seeing that you're my spirit guide of sorts… sorry…" Harry hastily added when the hurt in Seth's eyes overwhelmed him. '_Insensitive son of a bitch, that's what I am… and it's good that I am, otherwise life would be far more boring than it already is._'

"I take it you're here for 'that'?" Harry offered, trying to distract Seth by switching to another topic. Seth didn't give any form of response, instead he was staring at Harry for a while, as if he wished reveal a hidden truth or tried to ascertain that an unknown requirement had been achieved. After a while, he spoke up.

"**You have done as I asked… sort of, at the least… I will grant you a moment of insight into the nature of one of your inner animal forms… It is up to you to decide when and whether you allow… to have it prosper and flourish… rather than decline and waste.**" His voice trailed off, and Seth started to shimmer and fade away like he always did when one of their talks had come to an end.

"**Do not forget who you are when you have your dreams, fledgling… It is surprisingly easy to lose yourself in the phantasmagoria of the dream.**" With those words, Harry's spirit guide vanished from sight completely. Harry blinked a few times and yawned loudly. "That's right… Need to get some sleep." He barely hauled himself over to the bed located in the middle of the room before he fell fast asleep, not even bothering to move underneath the blanket.

The next morning, Harry hid a knowing smirk as he read the article on the front page that detailed how the Potters had secretly appointed Pettigrew as their real Secret Keeper, and that Sirius Black was to make it look like it had in fact been him, not Pettigrew, that warranted keeping the Potters safe. Sadly, nobody held any suspicions that Pettigrew was a Death Eater. This revelation led to an article on the second page, which in turn detailed exactly how the events that happened when Sirius had finally driven Pettigrew into a corner went. '_**As commented by Director Bones of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement: An outside source has brought to our attention that in addition to the fact that Pettigrew had been entrusted as the Potters' Secret Keeper, Sirius Black had never received any form of trial for his (now proven to be false) transgressions. Madam Bones feels that this blatant failure of justice has done far more wrong than right and is trying to appeal for a public apology for Mr. Black's unjust imprisonment in an official session of the Wizengamot. Most are still unsure about this sudden development as a whole, seeing that Mr. Black is nowhere to be found and would have handed himself over to the capable hand of the DMLE if he were indeed innocent from all charges. Mr. Black, if you happen to read this, please give some form of response.**__ There we go, Padfoot, you're a free man if you take this as your cue!_'

* * *

A/N:

Padfoot's finally beginning to get his name cleared, and Harry has just had his first steps of the Animagus process. More on that in later chapters. It looks like Harry's 'Poll' form is going to be a feline animal. The poll itself will still be up and rolling for a couple of months, but I doubt there'll be a massive shift in the voting hierarchy. Still, I keep my fingers crossed to wait for 'that thing' to happen.

Nah, I didn't kill Umbitch yet, she's made it to the lobby of St Mungo's in the nick of time. She'll pop up a couple of times in the future to make Harry's life a living hell. Wouldn't be much of a plotline if I had him cleaning out every bastard out there now would it? Besides, I have this distinct feeling that I still need her for something sinister…

Questions about how Amelia Bones knew that she was talking to Harry will probably be answered in the one of the next couple of updates or so, don't worry about that. In other words, I don't have a damn idea for that one yet. Stay tuned for more.


	9. It was not like we all thought it was

Disclaimer: Do not own, do not lose. All's fair in love and war. The insane are merely ones with more imagination than the rest of us do. Please encourage them to use their 'gifts' for more productive ends. Inventing candy, for one.

Without any further ado, I bring you the ninth 'issue' of Full Moon Rising.

* * *

Harry woke up around four thirty in the morning, his mood having turned sour when he finally realized the time, and made even worse through his headache. A loud groan of exasperation followed.

"God-fucking hell… That dream could definitely be described as surreal. I really need to wring Seth's neck for neglecting to mention that aspect of the 'reward' he gave me. Bloody bird's an outright menace," he said, as he smoothened his robes. Sparing a brief glance at the mirror on the wall opposite the doorway, Harry decided that wearing his bandanna today wouldn't hurt.

With nimble fingers, he tied the cloth to his head, showing his familiarity with the unusual piece of clothing. He checked himself in the mirror once more, before nodding in approval and leaving the room, turning only to watch in mild interest as the wooden door vanished from the wall, leaving no trace of its former presence.

Feeling rather bored and having nothing else to do, Harry decided to explore the castle for a bit until the usual racket of students moving to the Great Hall for breakfast informed him of the time. He discreetly mixed in with the crowd as they passed the empty classroom on the third floor he had been occupying for the past ten minutes. The reason he was there was because of an interesting smell, but after a thorough search, he hadn't found its origins.

Having had a brief but satisfying breakfast, Harry made his way to the first class of that morning, Potions. For some reason, Harry found that he couldn't ignore the borderline insulting comments made by the Potions teacher during this particular morning, despite the fact that he generally let them slide during class. He snapped after a particularly venomous remark.

"I've grown tired of your unprofessional attitude towards me and other students who actually wish to learn the subject that you teach, not to mention your disgusting way of treating other people… We're not all slimy, atrocious and foul globs of manure, unlike you, S.S. Shit-stain." Harry growled as he stared a startled potions master directly in the eye. The class, consisting of Ravenclaws and Slytherins, gasped at the harsh words directed at their potions professor. Harry immediately chastised himself for losing his cool; he hadn't been sorted in the house of the cunning for nothing!

The professor was unable to form a comprehensible string of words in reply to Harry's outburst; his mouth had fallen open and it didn't seem like he would be able to gather his composure any time soon, if the gaping, fish-like motions made by his lower jaw were any indicator.

After giving himself the mental equivalent of a kick in the shin, Harry realized that it would be for the best that he milk the present situation for all of its worth, considering that he couldn't take back his words. On another note, he really didn't feel like serving a detention if he could help it.

"If you cannot manage to do at least so much as encourage a healthy wish to learn, you're not fit to teach anyone, your prodigious potion-making skills not taken into account."

Harry briefly let his gaze travel freely through the classroom before turning his attention back at the greasy-haired teacher. His hand lashed out, grabbing Severus Snape by his robes in the stomach area, before twisting the fabric and lifting him up in the air, earning him even more gasps of astonishment from the crowd of students, who were now watching the one-sided exchange with barely contained awe, fear, concern and a twisted form of glee.

From the short, snappy breaths he heard behind him, Harry surmised that Hermione was scandalized by the blatant disrespect for a teacher, and was about to blow up. He decided to intervene before Mt. St. Helens-Granger could erupt.

"Oi, Miss Granger. Would you mind answering a couple of questions for me?" He asked, not even bothering to shoot a glance in her direction, catching her completely off guard.

Snape was still too stunned by the sudden change in authority to even make a sound, instead choosing to follow the events as they unfolded without saying a word.

"Uh, sure?" she replied, the uncertainty evident in her voice, surprised by the sudden focus on her person.

"If a teacher, a professional educator with all the necessary qualifications for the position on his curriculum vitae, proves unable to set aside his grudges or personal preferences for the sake of education, what would that make him?"

"Biased?" she said dumbly, earning a few snickers from the collected students. Snape was about to interrupt the proceedings with a derogatory sneer that would somehow involve the late James Potter, but Harry's next words cut him off from that train of thought.

"Hmm… I was going to put it this way: 'While his skills as a potions master is unequalled, Severus Snape possesses a biased, petty and downright unpleasant character, and given the… evidence, he is wholly incapable of leaving his memories in the past, and appears to be constantly forcing his bitterness on the generations of the future, save for those select students he blatantly favours over all else.' Do you have anything to add to that succinct description, Miss Granger?" Harry responded, still not sparing her a single glance.

"No, not really." She conceded.

"Then you have to agree with me that Severus Snape… as proficient as he is in the profession of brewing potions," Harry put the emphasis on 'proficient', "he simply lacks the psychological profile to operate fairly as a professional educator. Wouldn't you?"

"I can't say I do not." She agreed. Snape decided at this moment to interrupt the ongoing conversation, not knowing that it was already mostly over and done with.

"Potter! Unhand me immediately!" He commanded, but his efforts, much too late, were in vain. Harry pointedly ignored the Potions Professor's sudden outburst, instead choosing to act as if the man was not there in the first place.

"Very well. I will drop this man off at the Headmaster's office, where I will issue a formal complaint against his integrity as a teacher, and see to it that we will have a more… enthusiastic… Potions professor to teach us in the near future." He said, and he briefly glanced at Snape. "Perhaps our esteemed Potions Master will be able to find a way to put his talents to some more efficient aims. He has my full support if he does." Harry emphasised the words 'esteemed' and 'full'.

Snape could only gnash his teeth in anger as he was hauled off to Dumbledore's office without being able to do a thing in retaliation. The Potter brat had formulated his little prancing fit in such a way that if Snape would act out on his sudden urge to smash something to dust, it would make him look the aggressor, not the little upstart. Not to mention that his robes were causing him slight discomfort as they began to constrict his blood circulation.

Harry seemed to pay the man's uncomfortable position little heed, but as soon as they had created enough distance from the dungeons, and after a brief but thorough check that there were no eavesdroppers nearby he spoke up.

"If I may be so bold to ask you a question, sir… I, for a lack of a better term to describe it, understand that you and my father have had their disagreements in the past…" - There wasn't a bigger understatement in the universe, Snape mused, as certain memories of his time as a student surfaced to the front of his mind - "But why do you see the need to act out on those… no doubt unpleasant… memories? Surely you can hate my father without somehow involving me in on the grudge?"

Snape's jaw went slack when Harry put his observations forward. Now that he thought about it, truly honest thinking, it _was_ sort of silly to involve an eleven year old child in this matter. The sudden revelation shocked him so much that he almost failed to hear Harry's next words.

"I am glad to learn that seeing reason is not beyond you, sir. I just wished that it didn't have to come to this. Nevertheless I will personally vouch for your skill as a Potions Master. I also hope you will enjoy your new… calling in life. Let's face the facts; your teaching skills leave much to be desired, contrary to what you might think. I might learn more about potions through the most elaborate and incomprehensible book on the subject than through your… efforts, as heartless and offending as it may sound."

"None taken." Snape grounded out, having come to terms with the fact that antagonising Potter would do him no favours.

"Excuse me, sir?" Harry asked, genuinely confused.

"Offense. None taken." Snape repeated, a hint of exasperation creeping into his voice.

"Well, I'm glad you do, sir. I'm glad you do…" Harry trailed off; they had finally arrived at the Headmaster's office. Another obstacle had appeared, one that Harry hadn't thought about until he was standing directly in front of it.

"Erm… Do you, perchance, know the current password? It's been a few months since the last time I was inside…" Harry asked, before adding, almost as an afterthought, "and I do not think that our _esteemed_ Headmaster would keep his office publicly available for much longer than necessary to certain outsiders…"

Snape couldn't help himself; despite the fact that he was about to lose his job as a professional educator, he snorted in amusement at Harry's light attempt at sarcasm. Harry took this as a positive sign; time to haul out the big guns.

"In exchange for a… binding, I'm afraid, vow, to follow through on your part of the deal, I might just allow you… limited, of course, access to a substance… a liquid, with as of yet undocumented properties. Who knows what secrets it might hold… and what uses it may have?"

Harry found that he couldn't have played that card any better than he did; Snape's eyes shot wide open in astonishment at such a forward and potentially rewarding condition. Truthfully, the Potions Master's day couldn't have gone any better than this. First, he no longer has to deal with teaching the brats, allowing him more time to research and develop in his favourite occupation. Second, he is rid of the Potter brat, and third, he receives a hefty reward in exchange for a meagre vow, one that he would take any day, any time, solely for the fact that he would no longer have to grade the works of abysmal talented students such as Longbottom and Weasley, the mere thought of the inability of the hapless duo to brew even the simplest of potions would have driven him completely spare if it hadn't been for his proficiency with Occlumency.

Snape was filled with a sudden rush of pure giddiness as he croaked out something that Harry, even with his enhanced sense of hearing, barely caught. "No, wait. I'll take the vow here and resign from my post personally. If anything, I'd rather not get you involved in my resignation any more than needed. I'll come up with something to throw the old codger of both of our backs."

Harry shrugged.

Idly, Snape was wondering about what the enigmatic substance was as he took the vow, only to be handed a simple vial with blood. Raising an eyebrow, he directed his attention to Harry, receiving only another shrug in response.

His surprise was so great that even his masterful control over his Occlumency abilities failed to prevent him from promptly fainting in excitement when he read the results of his scanning spell.

The fiery script that hung suspended in the air flickered briefly before fading completely from sight, but Harry had caught the complete list of information about the blood - his blood - and memorised its properties with rapt attention.

_Species: Unknown._

_Properties: Limited regenerative and healing properties. If used in its natural form, may induce a temporary haze of rage and craving for bloodshed and destruction._

_Possibility of inducing a gradually worsening state of insanity to they who have consumed the raw variant. Experimentation with various variables to negate the potential drawbacks is highly recommended._

_Administration to a werewolf under the influence of the full moon will grant them complete control over their motor functions so long as the blood is in their system. Warning: any attempt to use in conjunction with the Wolfsbane Potion will cause the subject to lose their presence of mind, leaving them alive yet very much in a state not unlike the victims of the Dementor's Kiss. The development is permanent._

_If used in conjunction with sufficiently complementary ingredients, it may very well be capable of reviving the dead, if, and only if administration of the potion came to pass within a month of the death of the subject. Furthermore, the body must be in nearly pristine condition if one is to attempt resurrection, for the blood will lose its regenerative and healing properties if used as an ingredient. Any condition short of up to the required standard will only cause the subject to die shortly afterwards from the original cause of death, or will simply fail to induce any form of response at all._

_It is ill-advised to administer the potion to the elderly, for the fragile constitution of their bodies will only cause rapid deterioration of physical health, inadvertently leading to death._

Harry grinned in obvious satisfaction. Now, all he needed was to ensure that Albus Dumbledore would refrain from meddling with any further actions made.

Oh, and he had a pair of massive axe blades to retrieve from Gringott's, in person, as no amount of postal owls could ever hope to transport it. His grin grew even wider as he remembered the custom order for the large metal construct. Two extremely heavy blades of equal size connected through a series of metal straps, bolts and pins that would serve to secure it to the modified bone club, which he was surprised to learn to have belonged as a leg bone to a particularly infamous medieval Giant warlord going by some unpronounceable name.

Érbaìgh or something.

Every renowned figure in history had had some sort of icon, a coat of arms, a sigil or emblem about him, and Harry wasn't going to abandon that longstanding tradition.

After all, what was the grim reaper without his trusted and iconic scythe to wrench fear in the hearts of men?

A/N:

Another instalment of Full Moon Rising for you lot to enjoy! Huzzah!

Harry is… scary. If he doesn't keep himself under wraps, Hogwarts might just become the scene of a massacre. Of course, it doesn't quite help if people constantly egg you on for some reason, which is what Snape does. Obtaining an enormous battleaxe doesn't help.

The axe blades are obviously goblin-crafted. Go guess what that means. Massive Goblin-crafted Battleaxe meets Basilisk Venom meets (…) meets (…) meets (…) = Profit?

Hah!

I hope I've tweaked the pro's and con's of the various uses of Harry's blood in such a way that it doesn't appear omnipotent.

I've been watching Underworld a couple of times just to get the basic hang of the storyline back (as the movie was released in 2003, and that's just AGES ago), and so far I've found quite a few plot gaps I can merrily exploit. I just might - NOW WHAT?

_R&R welcome, be most_.

**Quiet, Yoda. Go back to your own universe. Lord Voldemort demands no less from you.**

This place is bonkers. No comment.

*_**Hiss* **_

Shi~!

_**-Static noise-**_


	10. Doing the Third Floor Midnight Gauntlet

Harry Potter and related indicia are owned by J.K. Rowling. That includes the Potions Riddle featuring in this 'issue', as it is paraphrased directly out of the book. The part of the song - Enter Sandman - however, is owned by Metallica. Pardon me for using it for the second time in this work of fiction, but I find that particular part rather fitting for the Harry Potter universe. Warning: contains scenes of pyromania and excessive vandalism.

* * *

Harry was now having the undeniably bad fortune to be the direct victim of something that could only be described as an '_Aw, shucks_' moment. Because of something he had christened 'a sudden development', as in someone who seemed rather adamant about keeping his identity secret had told him that there was a certain object of high value to be found at the end of the gauntlet that the third floor of Hogwarts secretly housed. In exchange for the artefact Harry would receive anything he wished for.

Harry, though suspicious of the man's unexplained need to keep his identity secret, wasn't one to complain and refuse this rather gracious offer, and after entering the first room on the third floor corridor he was now in a staring contest with a huge three-headed dog, feeling nonplussed at the presence of such a large and potentially hazardous animal inside a school for teenage wizards and witches. The man had told him to expect traps and obstacles, not a living, breathing creature.

After the enormous canine had shaken off the initial surprise of having a visitor standing there, it started to growl, a deep, menacing rumble, in an attempt to frighten him. In turn, Harry's loud exclamation in response was something not meant for the ears of mixed company. Especially when it involved him somehow forgetting to take his nigh-indestructible battleaxe with him. It had been completed just the other day, and this would have been _the_ perfect opportunity to try it out without causing too much mass destruction.

Not that anyone without the ability to understand the language known as Parseltongue would ever hope to interpret the underlying message correctly, for it was in that very same and obscure language that he swore. Loudly.

Harry was in luck however, for the effect of his amplified hissing voice greatly unnerved the Cerberus standing guard in the room. The poor dog whimpered loudly to itself about '_scary people_', before trying to huddle away against the far wall of the room, in an attempt to distance itself from Harry as much as possible. Its bulky size did little to help in that regard at first, but eventually it managed to place its head between its hind legs, still whimpering in fear.

Harry raised an eyebrow at its strange behaviour, but it wasn't any different from what he usually encountered when it came to animals. He just figured that the Cerberus's sheer size would have made a difference, but apparently it did not, much to his relief. He really didn't want to stain his hands with the blood of an innocent creature that was only trying to do its job if he could avoid doing so in any possible way. It wasn't as if the beast was purposefully trying to goad him into a fight to the death, so he'd allow it that one small favour and leave it be.

He shook his head, shaking off any further thoughts about the three-headed dog and instead focused his attention on the trapdoor, now that it was no longer being guarded by the Cerberus. It didn't last long under the force he released on it, and Harry found himself staring down a deep and very dark well of sorts.

Harry figured that he should have expected for the obstacle course to continue in this manner, and sighed as he removed his shirt prior to transforming into his hybrid form. After a last, wary glance in the direction of the cowering Cerberus, he jumped down the hole, towards the darkness, slowly spreading his wings as he fell.

During his gradually slowing descent, Harry briefly looked up, towards the shrinking speck of light, regressing his vocal cords back to their human form to allow him to speak. "Somehow I'm glad I'm eleven and still have such a small body size. If I'd been fourteen or older I'd probably have plummeted to a painful death," he murmured, only to smack himself on the forehead when he finally reached the end of the vertical tunnel and gently put his feet down on a tangle of vines, obviously placed there to break the fall of anyone that jumped down the trapdoor.

He discarded that thought when he felt something sneakily climbing up his calves. Cursing his inattentiveness, Harry kicked off the ground, barely managing to leap away from what he now realized to be the plant itself trying to constrict his movement, resulting in some vines that were too stubborn to let go being unceremoniously torn off the main stem. The now lifeless tendrils uselessly flopped to the ground as Harry flew towards the only source of light in the dimly lit room; the passageway to the next challenge.

He made sure that he didn't touch the ground until he was a hundred per cent sure that there was not a single vine or leaf anywhere near him, letting out a sigh in relief, only to curse when he heard a rustling sound behind him. What he saw next made his mouth fall open in astonishment. The whole room was coming to life. An unbelievable amount of vines and roots emerged from the shadows, obviously trying to get a hold on the 'intruder'. Wasting no time in fleeing from the writhing mass of plant, Harry took off on a mad dash to safety, and it was only because of his honed reflexes that he succeeded several times in evading an attempt to make him trip.

It wasn't until he was reasonably well within the confines of the illuminated room that he realized he was no longer in danger from being strangled and suffocated to death by a particularly aggressive vegetable.

"Fucking wizards… Fucking plant… Fucking – huh?" A sudden and unexpected sound interrupted his string of insults as he heard the flutter of wings coming from above.

"Birds? In this place? Don't they know that it's animal abuse, not to mention downright cruel to leave – Oh." He paused, realizing that the 'birds' were in fact flying keys, lazily circling the room in a large swarm. He decided to ignore both the keys and the broomsticks stationed near him in favour of the door barring his way to the next room. He didn't like flying on a broomstick, not when he could do without one.

"Just how stupid do they think I am, to waste my time on such a trivial matter…?" He snickered before he broke out in a full run, and it was only because he was keeping his natural fear response suppressed, that he broke into the next room without injuring himself, as he smashed through the door like it was made of wet cardboard, with the splinters propelled as if they were bullets.

The contents of the fourth room surprised him. Instead of containing some sort of creature or obstacle, all it seemed to hold was a number of statues positioned on a black and white patterned marble floor. He planted his palm in his face. '_Chess. I. Absolutely. Hate. Chess. I never seem to win in that blasted game of thought… I think it's time to level the odds a little, heh._'

He leapt into the air and moved to a spot just above and in front of the first row of statues. He grinned, glad that he could wreak havoc in a place where nobody would find out he did so. A faint smile graced his face as he took his wand out.

"Incendio!" He called out, but instead of the standard stream of flame moving from the tip of the wand to the intended target, the fire compressed itself in a tiny white-hot orb that vibrated with unbridled power. Harry closed his eyes before flicking the miniature sun at the centre of the room.

To say that the resulting wave of heat and displaced air had caught the eleven-and-a-half year old vampire-werewolf hybrid off guard was a blatant understatement. When he finally assumed that it was safe enough to open his eyes, the scene of destruction below him was downright catastrophic in proportion.

An enormous scorch mark marred the floor, and the statues had been blown away like they had been mere leaves in the wind. Harry was slightly taken aback with the destruction his spell had wrought. He was glad that he had been smart enough to put some distance between himself and the center of the blast.

"Damn it, must've pumped too much juice in that one. It could have killed me. Then again, that old codger said that this wand would pack quite the wallop…" Harry muttered, silently vowing to himself that he would never again overpower his spells in the same way unless it was absolutely necessary. Unhindered by the now obsolete 'challenge' of the fourth room, Harry made his way to the next, singing in a soft voice to keep his mind off the scorch mark below him.

"_Something's wrong, shut the light  
Heavy thoughts tonight  
and they aren't of Snow White_"

_Dreams of war_  
_Dreams of liars_  
_Dreams of dragons' fire_  
_and of things that will bite, yeah!_"

His voice faltered when he encountered an empty room. Puzzled by the sudden lack of a 'challenge', he proceeded, wary for any traps that might suddenly trigger, but he found nothing of the sort, much to his surprise.

"This place really is twisted backwards. Why go to the trouble of even making this room when there's not even going to be placed any sort of trap at all? This doesn't make any sense whatsoever." He commented, a little put out at the lack of 'entertainment', but appreciative of the fact he didn't need to fight something for once.

When he reached the next room, he was half expecting to find another empty room, but he found that his thoughts weren't correct on the subject. Just when he reached the table with the slip of parchment and seven flasks of varying size, two large magical fires appeared out of nowhere at the bottom of both of the room's doorways, covering the portals practically to the ceiling, eliminating the option of him bypassing the magical flames by flight.

"Now this is just brilliant. I'm stuck here, so I might as well take a look around. Now let's find out if I can solve this _thing_." Harry muttered, annoyed by the fifth challenge's designer's need to block both the way forth and the way back.

"Why would you even need to block the way back anyway? Shouldn't just blocking the way forward prove enough to dissuade any potential 'visitors' from moving on?" He thought about it for a while, unable to come to a logical conclusion other than trapping any intruders in the room. '_Okay, something is going on here and I don't think I like it. Why go through all this trouble? The only reason would be to protect something from someone, but these 'traps' are being too easy to solve. Far too easy._'

"Thinking about this any more isn't going to help me move forwards. Now, let's see if the slip of a poor replacement for normal writing material has anything worth of interest written on it." Harry cut off his thoughts.

"'_Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind,  
Two of us will help you, whichever you would find,_

_Choose, unless you wish to stay here forevermore,  
To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four_

_One among us seven will let you move ahead,_  
_Another will transport the drinker back instead,_

_Two among our number hold only nettle wine,_  
_Three of us are killers, waiting hidden in line._

_First, however slyly the poison tries to hide,_  
_You will always find some on nettle wine's left side;_

_Second, different are those who stand at either end,_  
_But if you would move onward, neither is your friend;_

_Third, as you see clearly, all are different size,_  
_Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides;_

_Fourth, the second left and the second on the right_  
_Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight._'"

Harry stood there for a while, completely dumbstruck, but then he let out a brief snort of amusement, one that progressed in a chuckle, and then he started laughing, feeling honestly amused by the morbid tone of the logic puzzle. '_This is just like Snape. I kind of start to miss old Sour-face, though one would probably have to torture me to death just to find that little tidbit out. Now let's see what we can do about this little puzzle_.'

"Hmm… Okay. These two are probably nettle wine. That makes these two poisons." Harry murmured as he pressed a clawed fingernail deep in the wood near the two flasks containing poison, before picking them up and chucking them into the black fire at the opposite end of the room.

The flasks exploded with two loud bangs, their contents ending up being sprayed throughout the room in wide arcs. Harry hurriedly took cover below the table, making sure that he didn't come into contact with the poisonous liquids. He awkwardly made it a point to leave the last flask of poison exactly where it was.

"Three left, one is poison, one is for the way forward, and one is for the way back. Now, since the smallest one isn't poison, it means it can either be the one to move on or the one to let me go back…" Harry mused, feeling that, at the very least, he was making some progress.

"Now, if I wish to continue, I don't have any use for the one on the far right. That would make the smallest one the one I need." He concluded, removing the flask from the table and sauntering to the black fire that was keeping him from moving on to the next room, keeping his fingers crossed and praying silently that he wouldn't be reduced to a small pile of ash and bones.

"Well, here goes nothing!" he quipped, and with that said, he swallowed the contents of the flask, feeling his innards turn to something akin to ice, before stepping through the black flames.

At first glance, the next room seemed to be empty, save for the large object that was positioned in the exact centre.

"He wants a mirror. Of all the things of value in the world, the guy wants a mirror." Harry said, deadpan, as he warily made his way over to the large reflective ornament. Nothing happened, leaving the young hybrid a little perturbed by the lack of defences to keep the mirror where it should be.

"If they really wanted to keep this mirror where it is, they would've installed more advanced and more dangerous methods of security. I have a really bad feeling about this." Harry voiced his opinion, before focusing his attention on the reflective object, something he shouldn't have done at all.

"What the fuck!" Harry loudly remarked upon seeing an image of him in his hybrid form, holding a blood red stone with the size of a large pebble in his hand. He was even more surprised when the image moved of its own accord, slowly moving the crimson stone towards its mouth, as if it intended to swallow it in its entirety.

The image winked at the Harry in the real world as if it was all just a big joke while it followed through on its current frame of mind, if you could attribute a mirror image to have a 'mind'. Taken aback by the surrealism of the encounter, Harry left the room, all the while trying, and failing, to force the large lump stuck in his chest to decrease, or at least move it further down his digestive tract. It was because of his preoccupation that he failed to noticed that the image in the mirror changed from a gleefully smirking Harry in his hybrid form to that of two men chained to the walls of a torture chamber, their bodies riddled with an extensive number of profusely bleeding stab and slash wounds.

If he'd had stuck around for a little while longer he would have noticed that while the first of the duo was mostly human expect for the frostily blue eyes that were widened in fear and pain, and the elongated incisors that were clearly visible in the man's open mouth. The second man was pale and gaunt with an uncanny resemblance to a snake or a lizard, and with demonically gleaming, defiant red eyes.

* * *

In her private quarters, the Divination teacher going by the name of Sybil Trelawney had been casually sipping from her glass of cheap sherry when her body suddenly stiffened and her eyes rolled back in her head, giving her an even more deranged appearance. She unintentionally dropped the glass she held in her hand as she almost mechanically rose to her feet, not in the least bit concerned about the liquor that was spilling on the rugged floor as the glass shattered in numerous shards and fragments of varying size that embedded themselves in the fabric. She began to speak in a gruff and hoarse voice that held a reverberating tremor of power behind it.

"_The dead will rise from their peaceful slumber for one more time._

_The __Hound of Gods will shatter the shackles that bind him, to devour the Flight of Death rises from the bones of the sire, the flesh of the prey and the blood of the nemesis._

_The dead will bask in the warmth of light and the bliss of rain for one more time._

_The Devil's Host will fall to the Hound's hungering maws as the unending war between the Warriors of Fenrir and the Wings of Death comes to a close._

_The dead will come to visit the living whom they so envy for one more time._"

After having spoken that haunting last sentence, she loudly coughed several times before looking around the room for the liquor glass she had dropped only a moment earlier, yet she somehow failed to notice it lying in fragments at her feet. It was only until the sharp noise of glass raking across stone that she paused her search.

"Oh my, what happened?" She vacantly asked, receiving no answer from the empty room. Not even the ghosts liked her presence, and so the only company she would have was Dumbledore's, and even that happened rather sporadically nowadays. She had little idea that in fact it was her insistence on wearing those disproportionately thick glasses, and not her… abstract… way of life, to be the primary cause of the rift between her and her colleagues growing wider and wider.

* * *

A/N:

Yay, Prophecy!

Yay, Harry's choking on the Philosopher's Stone! – Wait, that's not a good thing, is it?

*Cough*

Ah well, back to the sober world of seriousness. Yes, Harry has 'swallowed' the Philosopher's Stone, like I mentioned above. You can guess as to what it means for the storyline.

I feel sorry for Fluffy, really, I do. Locked up in a room with no company except for those that are crazy enough to ignore Dumbledore's initial warning (which, by the way, is a completely redundant and even downright foolish thing to do), and then being scared out of the living daylights by a Parselmouth… Yeah, I truly pity the poor pup.

Trelawney will come to play a bigger part in my story, as her 'talents' are severely underused in the canon storyline. I mean, she's at least, like, thirty years old? One would expect her to have at least made five times the amount of prophecies that are featured in canon. It's not like there's an entire legion of seers running around, spewing about glimpses of the future on a whim, but there **is** an astonishing amount of those glass recording orbs in the Department of Mysteries, and I think that those are only the tip of the proverbial iceberg, so it's fairly reasonable to assume that Trelawney made more than just the known two, even if they aren't about Harry.

Nobody every wondered why Trelawney isn't liked by the staff? Here's my view on the matter. Dumbledore's at least as much whacked in the head as Trelawney... Oddment, Blubber, Nitwit, Tweak, right? So it has to be the glasses.

Next up: Wrath of a Bloodhound, Eggshell of a Drake.

R&R please!


	11. Walking the Line, reversed

Don't own Harry Potter and don't own Underworld, no matter how much I claim otherwise… Yes, that'll do the job.

* * *

After nearly choking to death on a magical stone the size of a large pebble and triggering some sort of internal magical defence mechanism involving a series of flashes of bright light, Harry realized that he could breathe properly once again. Taking a few deep breaths to calm down enough to form coherent thoughts; he proceeded to awkwardly examine himself in case he had somehow managed to gut himself in his brief panic.

On the contrary, there was now a hexagonal slab of a few inches of blue coloured crystal merged into his chest, right over the place his heart should be, with a faint image of a wolf skull enveloped in flame engraved into the gemstone's surface. Harry groaned and started to pace in circles around the mirror in exasperation, making erratic, frantic gestures as he did.

"This is going to be such a drag to explain to everyone else… I can almost imagine just how it will go…" Harry sighed before speaking in a falsetto voice. "'A good morning to you, Professors, Headmaster, it seems I just managed to remove a highly valued magical gemstone from all of its protections, somehow ending up surviving choking on it after my mirror image swallowed it, not to mention that it's now embedded in my chest!'"

Harry let out another sigh as he stood still in front of the backside of the mirror and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yeah right, as if that'll go over well. In fact, they might just as well let me do as I like for the better part of the next six and a half years. I might be famous because of something completely stupid, but this would definitely take the cake," he sighed for a third time, now aware of the faint presence slowly moving closer on him from behind.

"Let's just find a way to get that thrice damned mirror out of here and see if that narcissistic piece of work holds true to his word..." Harry murmured before adding, "Well, if he doesn't... I'll see when I get to that point. Absolutely no sense in staying here longer than necessary. This place is starting to give me the creeps for some reason. As for you..."

The previous 'shadow' made its presence known, speaking with a calm and decidedly male voice with an unfamiliar but recognizable east-European accent.

"There's no need for you to rendezvous to the agreed location. There's been a change in plans. I'll take over from here and deliver the artefact personally to the client. You'll receive your stipulation within the next three days."

Harry frowned, annoyed by the arrogant undertone of voice the man used. He did not come here to be insulted by some random weak, pathetic lowlife. He bared his teeth in an aggressive gesture disguised as a sardonic smile, and was pleased to note a reflexive flinch from the man.

"Right… I go through the trouble of ensuring my role in this matter is brought to a satisfactory close, and the lame jackass decides he does not want to honour the original contract both sides agreed upon, for whatever reason he cooked up."

Harry snorted, an amused smirk adorning his features, playing some emphasis on his enlarged incisors, causing the shadowy figure to flinch ever so slightly for the second time, which did not escape the young hybrid's notice.

"You can run back to your current meal ticket with your tail tucked between your legs and tell him _exactly_ what I am about to tell you right now. I have no qualms in doing shady jobs and killing people, for the right price, of course. All that I ask is that once I complete my part in the status quo, I receive my just reward as was agreed upon by both parties. Failing to stay true to that… Let's just say that it doesn't quite end like the fairytale way. '_Happily ever after_' and all that rot."

Harry didn't really expect a response from the foreign wizard, if the unfamiliar accent was anything to go by, but was nevertheless satisfied when he registered a second flinch. '_Hook, line, sinker_. _Ridiculously easy, the way this guys falls for such obvious ploys…_'

"I… see. Your argument is valid. However, I cannot allow you to repudiate our orders, as they are not yours to make to begin with. As it stands, you cannot meet our 'meal ticket', as you so eloquently put it. It defeats the purpose of the mediator, wouldn't you say?"

Harry didn't quite agree with his discussion partner's assessment. In fact, he was already contemplating on killing the man, but decided to give him one final chance to follow through with his strangely generous mood.

"It seems one of those days I can't seem to catch a break, and I admit to come across a tad rash in my decision to dismiss your... _superior_, for despite the fact I utterly loathe you and the rest of the rabble clinging to the protection of some random megalomaniac, I'd like to hear what your thoughts on a potential agreement regarding this leniency... on my part would be."

Harry breathed out loudly for no other reason than to inspire some dramatic effect, as he had hardly a need for excess oxygen any longer, being that his metabolism had been enhanced to a few dozen times the standard human efficiency.

It was another one of the perks that came with being a hybrid, albeit a passive one and not something he could actively switch on and off on a whim. It was this particular trait that allowed him to survive for long periods of time without proper sustenance, over the years even going as far as to slowly cut back his daily need for blood to a couple of days and eventually to several weeks at a time.

Harry hoped that on one day he would manage to suppress the need to survive by consuming blood completely, something he saw as both an unnecessary stigma binding him to the vampire race, which infuriated him to no end because of inheriting a greater part of Viktor's memories through Amelia as well as Lucian's memories conveying utter abhorrence at the undead former king's various nefarious acts committed through a blind sense of superiority and blatant nepotism. Of course, Harry had not yet had time to connect the stone embedded slightly over his heart with his already completed, albeit unknowingly, quest for absolution of his dependence on blood.

The foreign wizard spoke after weighing his words for several seconds, reminding Harry of the conversation they were currently having.

"That is appropriate. As for my opinion, it should not matter. As I've said, you are not the one that holds any form of command over me. My _employer _however, does, and if he were here would tell you this, seeing as I would have if you hadn't so rudely interrupted me before. If you are willing to follow through with the adaptations in my employer's terms of contract, you will be rewarded with a –" He was cut off from completing his sentence by Harry, who had had enough of the foreign wizard's ramblings and loudly cleared his throat.

"Enough… You talk far too much. If I didn't know any better I'd say your name was Igor or something, given your horrendously blatant accent…" Harry cut in, absently registering a third flinch coming from the man. "Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me. That's bloody rich."

"Quite," the foreign wizard spoke, purposely avoiding the unspoken question hanging in the air, shuffling backwards a few steps in anticipation. "Regardless, you will be rewarded generously in return for your continued cooperation, and as long as you complete your side of the contract, my employer will not have reason to demand satisfaction. It would be wise to accept his... generosity. Not many who refused happened to enjoy the rest of their days..." The man shuddered briefly, before coming to his senses. Harry would have rolled his eyes, but his lack of defining ocular features kind of ruined the effect, and settled for a blank stare instead.

"If you would step aside so I can claim the mirror, and present it to my employer, you will receive your stipulation in three days, as I have mentioned before." The man made to move forward, but stopped when Harry didn't even blink.

Slowly, the young hybrid craned his neck towards the foreign wizard, a confused frown distorting his already unnerving features. "Under more trivial circumstances, I would not ask such a thing, but why would your employer want to lay his hands on this antiquated piece of vanity? It obviously has a purpose, one which eludes me for the moment, unless its task is to ruin the life of its current owner and his or her family."

Harry clenched his fist, keeping a tight rein over his temper.

"Normally I could care less about what would happen should things devolve into a complete and utter disaster among you humans, because one way or another you and your kind are always involved with such events, but I can't say I'm very keen with the idea of your employer using this," Harry waved with his hand toward the large ornamental object behind him, "against those who I have sworn my loyalties and my allegiances to. You," Harry directly addressed the foreign man, "and your _superior_ do not have claim to such a boon. Make your decision wisely, for I already have made my own, _human_." Harry very nearly snarled out the last word, but controlled his anger enough so that it came through as a strangled hiss.

Harry turned and left the room, paying the trembling man no further heed as he feverishly worked to keep his anger from erupting. If he had, he would have noticed the slowly growing puddle of blood under the man's feet, as well as the empty gaze in the man's white eyes, rolled back in his head. His thoughts milling around in his head, he missed the man speaking up in what sounded like amused interest.

"The boy... No, no, I believe I should not call him as such... Certainly this is an interesting development. His loyalties..." The man's voice, while it earlier possessed a cultured timbre with a faint trace of arrogance, now sounded completely inhumanly high and warped, as if something or someone else was speaking through a human mouthpiece. "He could be a great asset... if I had ways of keeping his nature in check," the voice noted, before the man's head lolled slightly before coming to rest in a position where it appeared as if the man was looking at the ground. "Hmm, it seems I must reinforce the ritual that binds me to this form. Lord Voldemort will not have his prize taken away from him a third time."

Laughing madly, the possessed corpse followed the Hybrid's footsteps away from the mirror.

* * *

A/N:

And the plot deepens!

My sincerest apologies for the long wait and the smallish update, but I have been really, really busy since the last update, and I already commented as such to various readers during those months that I had struck a bit of a snag with this chapter, but I have to say it came around quite nicely a few days ago.

About Voldie flinching... He didn't, but he could not stop himself from twitching at several points during his conversation with Harry, who he knows to be real face behind the creature that attacked him and killed Quirrell in Diagon Alley. He is wary. He remembers that event very well, and a few remarks of Harry sort of rubbed him the wrong way, but as deranged as the man might be, he knows how to cut his losses and work towards a solution in his favour as long as the situation is not completely beyond his control. Like many I think that Deathly Hallows was a minor disappointment to us faithful readers of Rowling's works, but it gives us so very much to work with...


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